Rent farm land for outdoor nursery

[helene]

That's really good to know. Who knows, I might be lucky that they have children and want to enroll them then everyone is happy

 

[renewablejohn]

Lancashire is a bit of a way but sounds wonderful!

How do you mean? If we don't run from a farm but a woodland instead?

We can easily find woodland but because we need some facilities for parking, emergency weather, sleeps and dark winter days we think a farm (with a building) will work better.

No I dont mean buy a woodland. The Government has recognised the Scandinavian teaching methods and have encouraged the setting up of "Forest Schools" It does not mean the school is based in a forest its just the style of teaching with a lot of practical outdoor teaching during the summer on unified themes across different subjects. My wife is a specialist teacher who goes into one of these "Forest Schools" (Actually a catholic junior school) I have provided many of the forestry aids and although its part of Manchester and surrounded by houses it does keep its own pigs, chickens, goats, sheep etc all with the correct licenses and grows a lot of fruit and veg which the children are fully engaged with. The use of our farm is just an extension of the natural environment they learn within the school. It creates no additional problems to the normal field trips which schools do. Obviously I do my own risk assessments which normally means no machinery working while the kids are here unless its a machinery demonstration and then their kept away at a safe distance. If you can become a feeder for such a school then you should be able to piggyback the arrangement they have with local farmers to use their facilities.

 

[simple as 123]

Hello

I run an outdoor nursery group for children aged 2-5. Inspired by Scandinavian traditions we play and learn outdoors come rain or shine. I think a perfect setup for us would be renting around 10acres of farmland - ideally some redundant woodland, or a field where we are allowed to have natural play structures and tipis. We would also need some basic facilities like a barn for extreme weather, some parking and storage.

Because we don't need an indoor site we can offer quite a lot in rent for the right setup. For 80 children around £30-50K depending on location and facilities. Do you think this would be an attractive offering for a farm compared to other diversification projects?

I also wonder if we are allowed using the farmland with children. I guess we are considered a commercial operation (not agricultural) so wonder if it needs a change of planning or how do you deal with other similar projects?

And finally, would you know of any farms in Surrey, Windsor or Bucks (not too far from the M25) that would be interested in renting to us?

Hope you can help

Hello Helene,

I have a similar vision and am wondering if you have been successful in finding land at all - I am in the process of doing something very similar and have no idea what a reasonable rent for the land would be, after all the planning and amenities were sorted. Have you got this far yet?

Thanks