CLA South East advisers' review of 2025
What have Rosie Salt-Crockford and Lucy Charman been doing on behalf of members this year?
Ho ho ho it's time for the South East advisers' annual review of the year.
2025 has once again been a varied year on the advice front, albeit planning and tax are still the dominant topics to have come in from members. Not surprising given the government's proposed IHT changes and the fact that most landowners are looking at how best to use their assets, taking advantage of permitted development rights and so on.
It seems a long while ago since we were able to offer advice relating to ELMs schemes, but this formed a sizeable portion of advice prior to sudden closures. Let’s hope there is a more positive and stable start to 2026.
This year, we have once again been involved in national policy areas including rural crime, planning, invasive species, species reintroductions and agricultural tenancies. Not only has this led to more advice cases coming our way from both inside and outside of the SE region, but it has also meant that we have been getting more exposure to policy and lobbying work and as such, have been able to respond to both national and local consultations, calls for evidence and representing the organisation at the government Rural Taskforce round tables.
Interesting topics
Interesting advisory topics that we helped members with this year include:
- Chance of compensation from a water company following the failure of a sewage pipe
- How to choose a land agent
- Who owns a historic boundary wall
- How to go about selling land with a sitting tenant
- How to challenge a business rates assessment on domestic equine facilities
- Rural worker pay rates
- Planning enforcement penalties
- Abandoned caravans left in fields
- Asbestos management plans
- Business planning for newly diversified enterprises.
In addition to advice, we have represented members in many meetings and steering groups covering topics such as Local Nature Recovery Strategies for every SE region county as well as various National Landscape and National Park meetings, beaver introduction advisory groups and catchment meetings to name just a few.
Active panel positions on a number of Farming in Protected Landscape panels and Rural England Prosperity Fund panels has ensured we have up to date and detailed understanding of the complexities of grant awards and the vast variety of projects being supported (and of course also turned down) alongside ensuring funding is reaching the rural businesses we represent.
We continue to attend various police meetings from Thames Valley Police, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and Kent with rural crime leads, Chief Constables, Police and Crime Commissioners and attend Rural Police Partnership meetings.
Visits and events
We have also made a real point of getting out the office and meeting more South East members this year, so if you haven't already heard from us, please do keep an eye or ear out as we hope to arrange visits with even more of you in 2026 and beyond.
These member visits have been incredibly useful as we've not only been able to put faces to names, but find out more about the wide range of CLA member businesses and the issues they're facing which we can potentially assist with.
We've also continued engaging with MPs and councillors alongside members at a number of roundtable sessions, organised by our colleague Mike Sims. In addition to this, we have attended the usual roster of events from county AGMs, to the South of England and Bucks show, to our annual flagship events: the Plumpton Future of Farming conference, the South East Rural Professionals Conference and most recently, the national forestry conference (all expertly organised by our own Emma Harding).
Work doesn’t stop at our own events, At the time of writing we have presented talks at events organised by professional members and have recently delivered training to a group of 50 police staff and officers specifically on the challenges surrounding crime in rural areas.
Finally, we have written some blogs which you can find on the SE blog page, covering all manner of topics (some more serious than others!), and we have contributed to advisory guidance notes on topics such as ragwort/invasive weeds, revamped the CLA website crime hub and contributed articles for our Land and Business magazine focused on topics such as crime, the grey belt and more.
We've definitely had a busy year, but it has also been excellent fun. As we transition into a new year we want to wish all South East members a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2026... and don't forget, we're here if you need us on 01264 358195.