Lincolnshire County Council allocates £60,000 to support struggling farmers and businesses

Council leader Martin Hill speaking during the full council meeting

Councillors have approved allocating £60,000 to support local farmers and businesses facing challenges due to changes in national policy.

Lincolnshire County Council leader Martin Hill (Conservative) proposed allocating £10,000 to the Lincolnshire Rural Support Network and £50,000 to the Business Growth Hub.

The motion was passed during a Lincolnshire County Council full council meeting and the funds will come from the general reserve contingency.

As part of the decision, members also agreed that Coun Hill would write to the government, highlighting the cumulative impact of recent changes to Inheritance Tax Relief and Business Asset Relief on communities in Lincolnshire.

The letter will call for these proposals to be abandoned to help safeguard family farms and businesses.

He insisted it was a “quite serious time for rural areas and for Lincolnshire in particular,” adding that there was a “genuine issue” regarding the future of rural areas and businesses.

His comments came alongside recent news that more than £536 million is being spent overseas on ten programmes, including grants to promote low-carbon agriculture in Brazil.

Another scheme, worth over £16 million, aims to help new farmers in Rwanda produce tea for the first time.

Coun Hill described this as “just bizarre,” given the struggles faced by UK farmers, who he claimed commonly sit on a lot of assets but make about on per cent profit. “That’s where the problem lies,” he stated.

He said: “The motion was all about protecting Lincolnshire from what we believe is a bit of an assualt from central government.

“Not only have we got the issues in terms of new taxation, new inheritance tax rules, new taxes for environment purposes, but also new taxes for employing people.

“I think the farmers and small businesses across Lincolnshire feel very much under threat and the cumulative threat, I think, will mean that a lot of these small businesses won’t survive.

“In Lincolnshire, 90 per cent of our businesses are small businesses and we do feel if the government carries on on this course, it will have a terrible effect on the economic basis of our county.”