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Tony, Pat. Look at the harm that thinking about taking the money did Brookfield – upset the entire Archer clan with Shula, Lizzie and Kenton demanding shares. You will inherit from Peggy as she has put you back in the will and she must be worth a lot. Sit tight and tell Justin to take a running jump.
After all the housing developments in the village over the years there is plenty of housing: Manorfield Close and Glebelands as well as the Green. Willow Farm, the flat above the shop, Nightingale Farm. And there were a huge number of staff at Berrow Farm megadairy who were all “incomers” and were found housing.
Not needed.
And elsewhere I have been reminded of Valley Farm which was purchased to provide housing for the Berrow Farm dairy workers; conveniently forgotten.
I suspect the plan to buy a bit of Bridge Farm is to provide Justin with a mega house to provide somewhere for his next mistress. Mark my words Lilian there will be one.
I was taken with the caller-innerer (was it Claire for Clapham?) who said that (a) the development would need to be all affordable, and (b) Pat and Tony could do it on their own now Justin has given them the idea. But now that Nu-Tom seems to have £££ dancing in his eyes, doubtless we’re set for a replay of the Brookfield plotline
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Do we really believe that Justin will turn that land into affordable housing and only 18 of them, or is that just his spin to get the Bridge Farmers to sell? I’ll bet that whatever Justin does with that land, the Bridge Farmers will not like it.
Why would anyone accept an offer out of the blue without consulting an expert? I suppose if it ends in a million it must be right!
Thanks Purple Pumpkin. I am just sooooooo disappointed in Bridge Farm. Taking the big bucks and only then having high morals about building an eco building for the farm business. When they could build a scheme of high quality eco friendly ALL AFFORDABLE homes on their site, which is such an unlikely site for a regular Section 106 planning agreement. And even if Borchester District Council has a decent local plan policy with, say 35% affordable requirement, fully enforced on developers (unusual especially in rural areas) that’s still only 7 homes.
ClaireI fail to see how they are going to get a decent return on the more than 500,000 they are going to pump into the new building which simply replaces their current processing facilities and adds, what is essentially, a classroom. There must be a hell of a lot of people who want to attend these classes! I don’t think any real research has been done to establish this, it just sounded like a good idea. As for renting it out for functions, it isn’t as if Ambridge is short of function facilities! They would be competing with Grey Gables and Lower Loxley for event bookings. I think the money, if it ever gets to that, would be better off in the pension fund.
I have just done a quick google of cheese making courses and a comparable one is run once a week but not every week, with a maximum number of 5 participants at a cost of £150 for a one day course. Tom and Helen will be well on the way to retirement themselves by the time they pay off that half a million. On the other hand it sounds like a lovely business to run, so good luck to them.
I’ve been doing a few sums. Assuming a build cost of £150K per home (pretty basic), site costs eg for access road of around £100K and fees/on-costs of another £100K (low estimates). And no other planning requirements apart from 25% affordable housing, say 5 homes (ie no contribution to local schools, no contribution to highways or other public infrastructure). Total scheme costs would be £1M for the land, £200K for fees and site, £2.7M for the homes, so £3.9M. Only 13 of the 18 homes can be sold, meaning that they need to sell for at least £300K each before any profit can be made. And assuming no sales or marketing costs.
Add another £500K to the land price and this means the homes have to sell for £340K before any profit.
Doesn’t make any sense.
Of course what we know and Tom does not is that Justin is actually planning the same super large development as the guys who turned him down – but Justin already has the woodland which is adjacent and Lilian does not know who owns it. Wait until Tom finds out that Justin needed the access via Bridge Farm for much less than such a ransom area would
really be worth!Of course what we know and Tom does not is that Justin is actually planning the same super large development as the guys who turned him down – but Justin already has the woodland which is adjacent and Lilian does not know who owns it. Wait until Tom finds out that Justin needed the access via Bridge Farm for much less than such a ransom area would
really be worth!Ah Kosmo, you’re just proving that we *so* need an accountant on TA. We only ever hear about Brian consulting his financial advisor, and someone on the BL Board being the obstructive finance guy: surely all these small business owners would actually have some professional advice on tap?
It seems to me that the mercenary lot down at Bridge Farm have been outplayed spectacularly by Justin. Their approach to this deal was naive to say the least.
Why didn’t they seek an actual valuation of their land from Rodways or something? Why didn’t they take professional advice? How did they know that the price Justin was offering was a fair one? Just because an offer has come to you suddenly out of the blue it doesn’t mean that you should feel pressured into accepting it just as suddenly.
It doesn’t sound that attractive to me – £1,000,000 to buy land to build 18 houses? I’ve a rough idea of what rural properties cost in the county where I live, the cost of building a house (just going by the rebuild cost of my house for the purpose of home insurance) and the cost of buying a house on a new development. A million pounds doesn’t sound like nearly enough money to ask for the sale of land for the development of 18 homes that Justin is planning.
The Bridge Farm Archers didn’t do “the math” before jumping at Justin’s offer – I agree with what Claire Astbury says.
I don’t have a spare £1,000,000 or even £850,000 lying around but I hazard a guess that once they pay off their debts (Helen’s legal fees, their loans (haven’t they borrowed from family members such as Lillian and/or Peggy?), overdraft(s) and mortgages) and sunk a big chunk into Pat and Tony’s pension it’ll look like they’ve sold out far too cheaply.
It’s nothing more than completely ill-judged short termism on their part.
Bridge Farm finances are pretty opaque. There was £5k borrowed from Lilian at the time of the Clarrie-cola outbreak which we never heard was repaid, but almost certainly was. The mortgage was originally £825k and has been running for 9(?) years so is probably around £600k, the murderer’s defence was paid by extending the overdraft; capital gains tax will be payable by the partners on what they do receive; you can only put £40k a year in a pension scheme and your pot cannot be bigger than £1m (per person); putting £400k into a new building which is not in itself particularly profitable or likely to generate new revenues is not a great idea. When they sold the cows they got a chunk of money which was spent on Tony’s bollocks, sorry bullocks but they lost control of the food chain becoming dependent on someone else’s milk. Lost the whole USP of Organics.
The partners need to sit down and write a business plan working out the returns to be made from their plans.
After all we know that Ambridge Organics cannot have a farm shop at Bridge Farm because the turn in off the road is unsafe – which was why they opened the shop somewhere else; so we know that the shop at Bridge Farm is a total fiction and so is the café. And of course why all the fuss over selling Brookfield meat – it is not organic and they are a pure organic food shop.
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