BOCM Pauls sells off research unit
06 May 1999
BOCM Pauls sells off research unit
By Louise Rose
FEED company BOCM Pauls is selling its 200-acre dairy farm in Cheshire after deciding to re-direct its dairy research funds into other existing programmes in the UK.
Barhill Farm, near Whitchurch, is currently the base for the firms nutritional and livestock research. It is for sale as a whole at a guide price in excess of £1 million, including 640,522 litres of milk quota.
The substantial dairy unit, built in 1995, currently has cubicles for 96 head, but a further 78 could be built within the existing cubicle area, increasing the cow numbers to about 174.
Other buildings include a range of traditional barns used for calf-rearing, young stock housing and slurry storage.
Most of the land is grade 3, with an area of grade 2. None is IACS-eligible, and most is down to grass.
Niall Jenkins of land agents Carter Jonas said: “On a bare land basis the land is valued at between £2000-2500/acre”.
An eight-bedroom farmhouse in need of some modernisation is included in the sale.
“The aim is to sell the cows to the purchaser, and an independent valuation of the stock will take place soon.
“Barhill is ideally suited to someone with ambitions to establish or improve pedigree stock; the buildings and handling facilities would complement such an enterprise,” said Mr Jenkins.
FURTHER details are now available for the ICI northern portfolio initially announced to the market in March by selling agent Knight Frank.
The agricultural interest centres around the Wilton Estate, near Middlesbrough, Teesside.
In lots the estate is split 15 ways with the castle, currently providing hotel and conference facilities lotted with about 30 acres of parkland, guide price £1m.
Most of the farmland is let as four farms for an aggregate annual income of £41,150 including two farmhouses let without farms.
The farms range in size from about 30 acres of arable and grassland to more than 790 acres farmed as a mixed unit including a farmhouse and out-buildings, guided at £700,000.
About 220 acres of woodland are let to the local borough Council for 21 years from 1988 for £50/year and there is a 160-acre block of vacant mixed woodland.