15 Minutes With...Lord Townshend
Tom Townshend, the 9th Marquess Townshend, talks openly about what it takes to future-proof a historic estate in today's climateIn this edition of '15 minutes with...' CLA East Director Cath Crowther visits Raynham Estate in Norfolk to meet Tom Townshend, the 9th Marquess Townshend - a landowner whose family has farmed the same land since the 1100s.
Recorded on location at The Copse, the estate's own secret supper club, Tom talks openly about what it takes to future-proof a historic estate in today's climate. From building a portfolio of eight diverse businesses - including glamping, renewable energy, and commercial property - to navigating a five-year planning battle for a farm shop, Tom shares the real challenges facing rural landowners.
The conversation also covers the pressures of maintaining affordable rural housing against increasingly demanding EPC regulations, the three-year fight to get planning permission for a reservoir, and how a new potato rotation is helping to strengthen the farm's resilience.
At the heart of it all is a word Tom keeps returning to: resilience - and what it means to build a business that can still be farming here for generations to come.