A huge swathe of land around Sutton Bridge could be yours – for a cost of up to £55m.
As previously reported, the around 5,000-acre Sutton Bridge Estate currently owned by the Henry Smith Charity is up for sale.
It’s now officially listed for sale and includes five residential properties as well as 33 ‘assured shorthold tenancies’, which are mostly farms.
The land brings in £1m in agricultural rent and £260k in resident rent.
Part of the land to the west of Sutton Bridge has also been allocated for 210 new homes.
It’s being sold at between £15.5m and £55m as a whole or in four lots by Savills who describe the land as ‘a substantial commercial agricultural estate, comprising multiple leased farms, generating considerable rental income.”
It continues: “The Sutton Bridge Estate is a substantial let farming estate located in the renowned and fertile Lincolnshire Fens and being offered for sale on behalf of The Henry Smith Charity.
“One of the most important commercial farming estates in South Lincolnshire, the estate is situated around the village of Sutton Bridge and extends to approximately 5,044.64 acres (2,041.52 hectares).
“The arable area amounts to approximately 4,570.76 acres (1,849.72 hectares) with the balance being residential properties, farm buildings, pasture land, woodland, marshland, spinneys, tracks, ponds and drains.
“All of the arable land is classified as grade one. The silt soils sustain a diverse array of crops including cereals, oilseed rape, potatoes, field vegetables, onions and sugar beet.”
Part of the land is coastal salt march which is on a ‘long lease’ to Natural England.
“The estate supports a large number of tenants across multiple tenancies, ranging from larger equipped holdings of 200 acres upwards to much smaller bare land parcels,” a spokesman for Savills said.
The land was originally owned by the Guy’s Hospital Estate, the entirety of which was the subject of a compulsory purchase by the government in 1921.
The Sutton Bridge land was taken on by the Ministry of Agriculture until The Land Improvement Group took it over in the 1980s while offering tenants the opportunity to buy the land they lived and worked on themselves.
The Henry Smith Charity bought the land in 1997.
Alex Lawson, head of Rural Agency at Savills said: “The Sutton Bridge Estate is one of the most important and largest commercial farming enterprises in the Lincolnshire Fens.
“The multiple leased farms generate a considerable rental income and there is potential for further income generation through the realisation of development opportunities.”
