attractions
Going public has its
attractions
Theres been a massive
increase in the number of
farmers who have opened up
their businesses to the
paying public. But running a
farm attraction has its
worries, as delegates to this
years National Farm
Attractions Network
conference will hear next
month. David Cousins
looked at the background
GLOOMY though many farmers are at the moment, one group could be forgiven for feeling distinctly perky about the years ahead. These are the people who – for a variety of reasons – threw open their doors to the public and quietly converted themselves into a farm attraction.
They turned redundant buildings into tea-rooms, interpretation centres and craft shops. They put up fences, stocked the resulting enclosures with rare breeds, llamas and owls. For those who did the job well, the public arrived in droves and the turnover of the diversification soon exceeded that of the farm itself.
But an open farm is not a guaranteed stress-free path to riches, explains Barry Davies, a chartered surveyor and treasurer of the National Farm Attractions Network
* Information and training
The NFAN was set up 12 years ago and now acts as a co-ordinating body for farm-based attractions around the UK. For an annual subscription of £25/yr, it provides information and training on things like health and safety, tax, planning and the many sets of regulations affecting farm attractions.
The farm and rural attractions that make up the NFANs membership between them get 10m visitors a year, which is a substantial figure.
So what exactly defines a farm attraction? "Though not all members are working farms, all have to be registered holdings," says Mr Davies. "Most do incorporate a working farm, but in 60-70% of cases the income from the attraction exceeds that from the farm."
Some farm attractions are now huge tourist businesses, with up to 240,000 visitors a year. Medium-sized ones will get 40-50,000 people through their doors each year and a small one will typically have 15-20,000 visitors a year. The extent to which they offer farming-based attractions or have made the move into unrelated fields depends on the philosophy of the person in charge.
Larger businesses generally have a range of facilities, including educational centres for adults or schoolchildren, animals, tea-rooms, restaurants, farm shops, farm museums and lambing weekends. In fact the list of what can be included under the broad title of farm attraction is endless – craft shops, clothes outlets, antique centres, potteries, woodcraft and so on.
The prospects for such businesses in the future looks pretty good. Most people in the UK have more disposable income than in the past and are happy to spend it keeping themselves and their children amused. But life for those who have taken the diversification path is not without its stresses and strains.
One on-going problem, says Mr Davies, is planning and in particular the expense and difficulty of getting local councils to agree to redundant farm buildings being turned into tea-rooms, restaurants etc. And thats despite the governments self-avowed policy of encouraging rural diversification. This is particularly so for businesses that are growing fast.
"If you have a farm attraction that gets 10,000 visitors a year and want to turn a barn into a small educational centre, that should not cause too much difficulty," he says. "But as visitor numbers rise and buildings start to have substantial changes to their use, planners can become more difficult to placate."
Another subject that makes owners of farm attractions splutter into their coffee is the increasing burden of legislation and regulation that has to be coped with. Mainstream farmers know all about this, but for those who invite substantial numbers of the public on to their farms or have a humble tea-room, theres a whole new set of environmental health and hygiene regs (as well as health and safety ones) to pore over late into the night.
Danger signs have to be erected, play areas made extra safe, washing facilities provided wherever people touch farm animals.
And then theres the fraught business of zoo licensing. While most people think of a zoo as somewhere that sports exotica like zebras, giraffes, elephants and lions, the actual definition is much wider. In fact the 1981 Zoo Licensing Act defines a zoo as a place where "members of the public have access to wild animals, with or without charge, on more than seven days in any period of 12 consecutive months."
The definition hasnt really been applied to farm and rural attractions exhibiting wild animals over the years, but the governments new Zoo Forum is said to be looking at widening the legislation to include smaller operators.
Farm parks and related businesses worry that they will have to support a huge new burden of inspection, even if their zoo consists of no more than some exotic sheep and owls. Such inspections can involve up to five people and the entire cost has to be borne by the park operator.
A consultation period has been going on for the last few months to decide the exact form the new regulations will take. According to Barry Davies, the final meeting of the zoo forum is in February and its only then that farm park operators will know how they stand.
When: Feb 25, 2000
Where: Arthur Rank Centre, NAC, Stoneleigh.
Cost: £35 for NFAN members, £45 for non-members.
Non-members welcome
More details: Ring 01536-513397