Lower Bush: Past, Present (And Future...?)

Today, I took a walk through Mays Wood and down past the east of Dean Farm... 

Dean Farm, view from the east side...

Fortunately this valley has not been taken over by the adjacent vineyard and remains unspoiled - though it has had its own share of upheaval in the past...

Walking down Tomlins Lane at the back of Dean Farm brings you out by the eastern edge of what used to be called "Pig Field" at Lower Bush. This is now owned by the vineyard and has been partly planted with vines...

No "please" or "thank you"... but at least it's not "Keep Out!... 

By the way, I am sure that folk in Cuxton and the surrounding area will be delighted to know that this "Livestock Grazing" is being funded by a £350,000 hand-out to Vineyard Farms from National Highways. Once upon a time, the rich landowners of Cuxton used to pay a tithe to the church so that the less well-off in the parish could be provided for. Nowadays, it seems things are very much the other way around: tax-payer's money is now used to subsidise a private estate owned by a billionaire tax-exile. 

Vineyard Farms even get to buy an ATV with their public cash windfall. Their boy racers will be so pleased.

Along the edge of Pig Field adjacent to Tomlins Lane, there were at least a dozen or so Broad-Leaved Helleborine orchids in bloom...

Broad-Leaved Helleborine...

Broad-leaved Helleborines...

View of Upper Bush from the top of Pig Field...

Same outlook (roughly) as above, 1972...

Fifty years ago, the woodland plantation between Barrow Hill and Pig Field didn't seem to be as extensive or overgrown as it is today - and nor, of course, did we have the vines. The view above seems to be from slightly further south than I could manage, given the extent of the woods today...

Same view as above, c. 1910...

Pig Field in 1910 was home to a hop garden, the output of which would doubtless have been dried in the oast houses at Upper Bush (long since demolished in the 1950s)...

Upper Bush farmhouse, demolished in the 60s, used to be opposite where the existing farm buildings are today. The tops of the oast houses can be seen on the left...

View towards Cuxton from where the North Downs Way passes by the northern end of the vines...

The warm, wet summer bodes well for the grape harvest...

View looking west from where the North Downs Way crosses Bush Road...

View south-west across Pig Field from Bush Road...

Towards Bush Road from the north-eastern corner of the Pig Field vines...

As above, looking westwards across Bush Road...

View of Forge Cottage, the North Downs B&B and (what used to be) Brick House Farm...

The same view from the North Downs Way, as above, 1972...

Barn conversions, Bush Road...

As above, 1972, before conversion...

As can be seen from the pictures above, Lower Bush has been, and still is, a relatively peaceful and unspoiled place. That could well be about to change.  Many folk have wondered why the strip of land between the North Downs Way and Tomlins Lane has been left weed-strewn and neglected, rather than planted out with vines.  It has been left for Vineyard Farms' Plan B...

The proposed Vineyard Farms Plan B winery...

During the planning inquiry back in March, it became apparent that Vineyard Farms had not really thought too hard about what they would do if they were not granted planning permission for their billionaire-backed £30m vinicultural pleasure dome. It seems as if they thought that their Lord Foster Xanadu was so wonderful and iconic that it would just sail through the planning process. Well, it didn't.

That has left them in a awkward predicament, with the output of 700 acres of vines to process, but with nowhere to do it. Perhaps a less cocksure company might have sorted that out before they planted the vines, but hey...

During the inquiry, a "Proof Of Evidence" package (which seemed to me to have been rather hastily prepared) was introduced, stating what VF would do if they didn't get the planning permission they wanted. As an observer, it seemed to me like a bunch of veiled threats, and ones which were irrelevant to the inquiry (which was surely supposed to be about the proposed Upper Bush winery, not what would happen if it didn't get granted). 

"Approve our plans, or we'll build a load of huge agricultural tins sheds, right next to Bush Road and overshadowing resident's houses. We could build them much further back from the road to avoid that, but no, we aren't going to."

"Oh, and we'll bring all of our farm traffic down Bush Road rather than over our fields, just because we can. And we won't bother composting our grape wastes, because we'd much rather add to the traffic by getting lorries to come and take it away..."

Bush Road, with the entrance to Tomlins Lane on the left...

Same view as above, showing what the winery sheds would look like in situ...

All of this can be done under "permitted development rights", which allows agricultural buildings to be built without planning permission, provided they do not exceed 1000 sq.m. in floor area or 12m in height... 

View looking east from the junction of the North Downs Way with Bush Road...

As above, with VF's proposed sheds...

However, "permitted development" only allows the building of one such shed every two years. If they stick to their plans (and the law doesn't change), it'll take them nearly 20 years to get what they want...

The Bush Road houses that are threatened by the VF sheds...

Vineyard Farms have six weeks to lodge a High Court appeal against the Planning Inspectorate's refusal. That expires on September 5th. It could take up to 18 months for the appeal to be heard, and then up to another year to hold a second inquiry and reassess the application. And the chances of success are not high - only about 35% of planning appeals that get to the High Court are successful. Only about 1 in 200 complainants actually bother....

...and all the while, the precious grapes need harvesting and processing...

I don't seriously think VF will go for the "full set of sheds" option. I believe they are too hubristic to back down, and that they will appeal against the Planning Inspector's refusal of their vainglorious palace. And if that fails, we will see a cut-down version of the Foster design for Barrow Hill put forward, something that may satisfy the objections of the Inspector.

VF are too in love with their dreams to ever let go...

Common Blue butterflies in Pig Field (female on the right)....

David 2, Goliath 0...

News reaches us that as a result of the Planning Inquiry held in March this year, the Planning Inspectorate has decided to reject the Vineyard Farms appeal against the decision made by Medway Council's Planning Committee in March 2022, to turn down the vainglorious plans for a monstrous Lord Foster monument and vinicultural theme park centre for the green belt area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) that is Upper Bush.

The full text of the appeal decision can be found here.

However, I would be very surprised if this is the end of it. 

Vineyard Farms have very deep pockets (or at least, their billionaire owner does) and an unquenchable hubris. Their only legal recourse in the face of this latest rejection of their plans will be an appeal to the High Court. The basis of such an appeal will need to be that the Planning Inspector has "erred in law": his decision cannot be directly challenged, but the process by which it was reached can be. If successful, the appeal will have to be reheard by a different inspector, avoiding the legal error made by their predecessor. 

The Vineyard Farms team were not at all impressed with the inspector's decision to widen the scope of the inquiry to include Green Belt issues, something which they and their supporters at Medway Council had wanted to avoid. On the opening day of the inquiry, there were dark mutterings about that from the Vineyard Farms army of consultants, lawyers and advisors, something that could have won them very few brownie points from the inspector himself.

It is interesting to note that in his decision, Green Belt issues were not considered to be a reason for the rejection of the VF appeal. This, in effect, is a big win for them. It means that the rather ludicrous "Millington precedent" (which in law means that VF's vainglorious massive tourist centre and luxury restaurant can be regarded as an "agricultural building") has been upheld, despite the huge scale of the development.

It will be interesting to see how Vineyard Farms respond in the face of this latest (albeit temporary) setback.

We know they aren't good losers. They have already threatened to build a series of ugly sheds right next to Bush Road, and to bring lots of additional service traffic down Bush Road instead of across their fields if they don't get their winery (see the latter part of this post). They have also threatened to take all of their agricultural wastes out by truck (rather than composting it, like any other farm would) adding to Bush Road traffic. 

The VF "sheds" proposed for Bush Road (picture from VF's "Proof of Evidence" appendices)...

The sheds (that could be built under "permitted development") don't need to be so ugly, nor do they need to be right by Bush Road. And why would they need to operate a shed any differently to the way they would their winery? 

A cynic would say that it really does smack of wanting to punish the local community for having the temerity to fight them - and win. One would hope that Medway's Planning department would moderate all this in any way it could, but they have been overwhelmingly supportive of Vineyard Farms in the past and somehow I cannot see their adulatory stance changing. 

No-one would deny that having planted so many vines in such a hurry, VF now have a pressing (no pun intended) need for manufacturing capacity to process the output - but perhaps a less cocksure company wouldn't have put all of their eggs in a £30m Lord Foster basket upon the presumption that everyone would just bow down to their grandiose plans for Upper Bush. The "ticking clock" is of their own horological design.

So if I was Mr. Mark Dixon (the billionaire owner of Vineyard Farms), I think I'd now be asking a few pointed questions about the approach of my UK management team. 

All they have managed to deliver so far are massive invoices for the army of consultants and lawyers they've employed, all to no avail. They have tried steamrollering the local community twice and both times they have got their arses kicked. What comes across to us locals as a high-handed, dismissive approach clearly isn't working for them.

The Planning Inspector has left the door open for them. He hasn't rejected the basic premise of the winery as "an agricultural building", only the premise that the impact and scale of the original proposal is appropriate for its AONB surroundings. In effect, the planning inspector's ruling has given Vineyard Farms a blueprint: it tells them how they need to tweak their design to get it built in the AONB.  Something else to consider is that Medway Council are also broke: I don't see them having either the resources or the will to contest any further appeals should VF submit revised plans, which are therefore likely to be just waived through as a result. 

It's clear that many of the local Cuxton community don't want the massive Foster flying saucer, for many of the same reasons that the Planning Inspectorate has rejected it. If only Vineyard Farms could swallow their pride...

Contrary to the spiteful and rather nasty closing remarks made by the Vineyard Farms representatives at the public inquiry, the opponents of the Foster-designed winery aren't all short-sighted, unimaginative NIMBYs with a hatred of change. Most of them would actually still like to see Vineyard Farms succeed as a business. But not at any cost.   

An advertising slogan for their "Harlot" brand: the Vineyard Farms philosophy for everything...?

Maybe VF could scale back their grandiose plans and still get a lot of what they need (as against everything they want) without pissing off the locals. Maybe they could do their manufacturing and bottling off-site (thereby solving a lot of the traffic concerns) but still have a scaled-down tourist centre and wine press nearby that satisfied the AONB appearance concerns and didn't involve such massive upheaval. Maybe they don't need all of the glamping tents, petting zoos and second/third/fourth phase tourist development plans that they so obviously aspire to. 

Maybe they could try being friendly, communicative, supportive and honest with the local Cuxton community (and especially their long-suffering neighbours at Upper Bush) and look to build a winery that was first and foremost a local asset with local involvement and local support, and then see how it went from there. 

I'm not holding my breath on that lot, however. I can't see Vineyard Farms changing their style or their aspirations somehow, unless the management team changes.   

So will Mr Sasha White KC (the formidable top brief who headed up the VF appeal team) wind up representing Vineyard Farms at a High Court appeal? I certainly can't see Vineyard Farms backing off or backing down. Ever. 

We shall see. They have six weeks to lodge an appeal.

Ludd's a Dud....

The mythical King Ludd is plagued by a greedy giant. Perhaps there's a metaphor here?

Earlier I wrote a post about Vineyard Farms’ latest batch of fake fizz and its equally fake-sounding marketing campaign for it.

Their marketing blurb for it states that:

…”Silver Reign is a reflection of our regal heritage. We invoke King Ludd's pioneering legacy to bring the unique terroir in the Garden of England to life, producing England's finest sparkling wines…”

“Our regal heritage”…?!  “We invoke King Ludd’s pioneering legacy”…?!

I read this and wondered just what fresh hell Vineyard Farms is now trying to inflict upon us.

Like many others I was inclined to think that in their unilateral renaming of large parts of the parishes of Cuxton, Halling and Luddesdown as the “Silverhand Estate”, Vineyard Farms had simply liked the vibe and gone with it. 

Many of the fields, woodlands and roads around Cuxton and Luddesdown have interesting and unusual names, names that are steeped in local history. Wrangling Lane, Cutter Ridge, Bushy Wood, Hatch Hill, Brimstone Hill, Brazenden Wood, Backenden Hill: all of these names mean something locally and would have made fitting titles for Vineyard Farms’ new estate and their brands. That would mean that Vineyard Farms would need to acknowledge the pre-existence of the local community around their new fiefdom however, something they don't seem to want to do.

After all, I can see why a moniker like “Silver Hand” might appeal to a certain type of management team. It has a remote, cold, impersonal feel to it, invoking both wealth and power. There are no warm or friendly connotations associated with the thought of the cold, metallic grasp from a powerful, wealthy, disconnected hand. It almost seems to have been adopted as a warning first and a brand second. 

In terms of historical precedent or links of the Silverhand name with the areas of Cuxton, Halling or Luddesdown however, there appeared to be none whatsoever – indeed, the most prevalent on-line reference to “Silverhand” was to a computer game character!

Johnny Silverhand "doesn't care much for the people around him as long as they are used to accomplish his goals..."

I like to think I know a little bit about local history, but the mention of a “King Ludd” rather puzzled me. It was certainly one I hadn’t come across before in my various researches in relation to Luddesdown.

Vineyard Farms themselves say that the “Silverhand” name comes from:

“…the history of the area - King Ludd, the founder of Luddesdown and many other points of interest, lost his hand in battle and had it replaced with a Silver Hand.  Hence, we have taken that inspiration and name our vineyard the Silverhand Estate….”

Stories of King Lludd Law Eriant (“Ludd of the Silver Hand”) state that he was King of the Britons from around 79BC to 18BC, and allegedly ordered the rebuilding of London's walls and towers. They go on to tell us that the city, hitherto known as Trin ovantum, thus became the city of Lud, i.e. Kaerlud. This was later corrupted to Kaerfundein, from whence came its present name. Ludd was eventually buried in London, close to Ludgate that still bears his name.

These tales arise from the History of the Kings of Britain as written by Geoffery of Monmonth (1095-1155) - a work which is now pretty much regarded as “a literary forgery containing little reliable history”!

Geoffery of Monmonth, it seems, was much more of a romanticist than a historian, many of his works being associated with mythical figures such as King Arthur. Indeed, it seems that his stories about King Ludd were derived from Welsh folklore.

The reality of local history may not be as glamorous or magical as Vineyard Farms would like it to be, although it is still fascinating nonetheless.

The dates given for the “reign of King Ludd” above coincide with a time just fifty years before the Roman invasion of Britain. The country at the time was divided into many different kingdoms ruled over by their own tribal kings, rather than a single “King of the Britons” as Ludd was claimed to be.

At the time of the Roman invasion in 43AD, Kent itself was under the rule of the four kings whom the Romans called the Cantiaci (whose capital was at Durovernum Cantiacorum, now called Canterbury) and who Julius Caesar named as Segovax, Carvilius, Cingetorix, and Taximagulus. On the news of the Roman landing, the British tribes united to fight the invaders under the command of Togodumnus and his brother Caratacus of the Catuvellauni tribe.

These British tribes were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Medway and fell back to the Thames, a wider river that was harder for the Romans to cross and easier to defend. Londinium was subsequently established as a civilian town by the Romans about four years later. Of a “King Ludd” and his founding of London, genuine histories contain not a trace…

So regarding the Silverhand Estate’s claims to a “regal heritage”, two things are completely apparent.

First and foremost, King Ludd of the Britons probably never existed. He is a figure from Welsh mythology, with links to the legend of King Arthur. He’s a myth. A legend. All that stuff linking him with London or anywhere else is just folklore. Ludd may have once been a minor Welsh tribal chieftain, but he almost certainly wasn't a King of the Britons. There is thus no real “regal heritage” or “pioneering legacy” for Vineyard Farms to trade off of.

Secondly, there is no concrete evidence to link the non-existent King Ludd with Luddesdown anyway, despite the plausibility of the name.

In terms of the origins of Luddesdown, Edward Hasted’s ancient and renowned History and Topographical Survey of the History of Kent Volume 3 tells us that:

”ADJOINING to Meopham, eastward, lies Luddesdon, commonly called Luddesdown. In the Textus Roffensis it is written Hludesdune, and in Domesday, Ledesdune. This place takes it name from the two Saxon words, leod populous, and dune collis, i.e. the peopled hill, alluding to its situation in this hilly country."

Alternatively, the name of Hludesdune, as cited in the 10^th century Textus Roffensis (Book of Rochester) translates as “Hludes Hill”: it may be that Hlude was a local chieftain of the area. “Hlude” also translates from the Anglo-Saxon as “loud” (and may be the origin of the term "hullabaloo"): perhaps the hill referred to was a meeting place.

But whichever way you slice it, there were no plagues of dwarves, no red and white dragons, no magical giants and no mythical kings in Luddesdown’s history.

Perhaps Luddesdown’s history was just far too boring, obscure and mundane for Vineyard Farms and so they simply decided to invent a more glamorous one to suit their own ends. Perhaps they just are jealous of their (and far more liked) competitor Chapel Down's genuine historical links to their own area and local community, links that they are proud to advertise. Perhaps VF felt they therefore needed to pay a historian to come up with a plausible-sounding load of mythical old cobblers in order to try and give some substance to their whimsical choice of an estate name.

(They have “form” in that respect. After all, they have just paid a top King’s Counsel to argue a legal case that the green belt/AONB planning restrictions affecting their billionaire’s £30m Xanadu can be waived aside, because it really is just the same as an agricultural tin shed, isn’t it?)

Or perhaps they've just been badly advised. After all, Vineyard Farms Ltd are largely just a bunch of business managers, advertising wonks and accountants, not historians. It would be quite amusing to think that a high-powered, multi-million pound company, and one that was looking forward to basing its entire branding strategy on having a "regal heritage", was misdirected by a preference for fantasies and legends rather than historical fact.

Whatever the reason, we should just laugh at their somewhat feeble attempts to subvert our local history to suit their own corporate marketing purposes - but thanks to things like ChatBot AI, made-up twaddle can soon become main-stream. Repeat nonsense often enough and clever-clever algorithms will pick it up and turn it into “the truth” - or at least what the lazy and credulous regard it as.

Vineyard Farms have bought up huge swathes of our local parishes and are aggressively reshaping and policing them in order to hijack their future for profit and glory.

Now, it seems, Vineyard Farms want to reshape and hi-jack our past as well.

Just my opinion of course, but could they really be any more contemptuous of the local area (and its people) than that?

Money can certainly buy you vast swathes of historic green-belt AONB farmland and enable you to industrialise it for profit. Money might buy you a favourable public inquiry result. It might even buy you a reinvented, glamorous history.

But, as the song goes, it can’t buy you love... 

Falling Flat...?

I have been wondering when we might hear from the Planning Inspectorate regarding their almost inevitable approval of the Vineyard Farms’ bid to build a billionaire’s vanity winery on the supposedly “protected” green belt area of outstanding natural beauty of Cuxton’s Upper Bush valley.

Apart from some wishful boasts in the Daily Treehugger (a.k.a. The Guardian newspaper – who somewhat hypocritically seemed to see nothing wrong in the proposed despoiling of a green belt AONB for commercial gain), our new feudal overlords at the winery have been rather quiet since the inquiry finished some two months ago at the start of April earlier this year.

I thought perhaps their dormant webpage might have sprung into life given their optimism, but at the moment it tells us that their “sparkling future” is still “coming soon”.

One new addition is a “shop here” tab, however. Clicking on that leads you to a promo page for their latest brew, the weirdly-named “Silver Reign”. In my (admittedly somewhat jaundiced) view, it seems a rather arrogant branding, redolent of Vineyard Farms’ imperious ambitions to reign supreme over the U.K.’s wine market.

I was initially impressed with the apparent five star reviews, but this seems to be a sleight-of-(Silver?)hand, however - when you click on the review link, the reviews are just general ones related to the supplier, (“The Wine Caverns”), rather than for the wine itself.

Indeed, quickly scrolling through the most recent comments for the past few months, none of them seemed to be about “Silver Reign” at all. Perhaps it’s more of a golden shower than a “Silver Reign”, as forgettable as their last effort. Who knows?  I can’t find any independent reviews of it on-line, anyway.

The boast about “Silver Reign” being a recipient of an award from the “Effervescents Du Monde” - “an international competition between The Best Sparkling Wines In The World”, apparently - also seems somewhat overblown. Only two UK wines featured, both from the Silverhand Estate, and neither of them made it into the top 18 of the final judge’s list.

However, what really did catch my eye was the marketing blurb on the so-called “Technical Sheet”…

…”Silver Reign is a reflection of our regal heritage. We invoke King Ludd's pioneering legacy to bring the unique terroir in the Garden of England to life, producing England's finest sparkling wines…”

All this “King Ludd” stuff is, of course, total nonsense. 

Claims to a “regal heritage” merely seem to be a rather desperate marketing ploy. However, even though their own real “heritage” is quite brief to date, Vineyard Farms can still claim some genuine history, at least when it comes to its past record of desperate marketing strategies.

The “Shop Here” tab on their “Silverhand Estate web-page” doesn’t refer to its earlier produce, such as their M&S branded “Bramble Hill” (which even The Sun only rated as a 3 out of 5)…

…and particularly not their “Harlot” (yes, you read that right) branded wines.

When I first came across it last summer, I initially thought the “Harlot” brand name was a clever play on words (along the lines of the famous jibe by Margot Asquith) and that the “t” was silent, as in “Merlot”.

From the "Harlot" web page - and everybody's answer to the question is, of course, "none of the above"...

A quick look at its awful, garish web-page (and be careful – prolonged exposure to flashing lights can induce epilepsy…) soon proved me wrong, however. The intended target audience very clearly seemed to be quite narrow and not very clever (e.g. Essex Girls out for a hen-night), the sort of folk who would almost certainly pronounce the “t” in Merlot, and probably in a “Sarf-fend” accent as well. 

I thought that perhaps MDCV UK Ltd had decided to let the Monty Python team run its marketing campaign for this one...

As with all things associated with Vineyard Farms/MDCV UK Ltd, the “Harlot” webpage is a strange one. There is no actual mention of Vineyard Farms, the Silverhand Estate or even MDCV UK Ltd itself.

The bottles bear the Silverhand logo, however, and some of the marketing blurb is undoubtedly MDCV UK’s, with the usual boasting of their “plans to revolutionise the English wine market” and how they “have established the largest vineyard in the UK and will be the biggest producer of English wine by 2025, with a production of up to 5 million bottles annually”.

Other marketing slogans for “Harlot” seem quite questionable. “The perfect fizz for a boozy lunch” is one such banner. Whatever happened to “Drink Responsibly”? Should their winery get built and the tourist traffic starts funnelling down Cuxton’s little Bush Road past the local primary school, I’m sure the school-run mums and dads will appreciate the thought of Vineyard Farms’s punters and their “boozy lunches” interacting with the local traffic flow.

Unfortunately, attempting to check the MDCV UK web-site for details on their “Harlot” brand brings up all sorts of hacker warnings. It seems their obsession with security doesn’t extend to IT…

It is clear that the brand line is very much an MDCV product though, but one that they seem to want to keep separate from their other premium lines, as if its parent company was somewhat ashamed of it and didn’t want to be seen with it in public.

It was Rupert Murdoch (anglicising a famous H.L. Mencken quote) who said that “No-one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the English public”. It's clear that the MDCV UK team behind the “Harlot” brand agree with him.

The rest of the UK wine market doesn’t. Some critics were decidedly sniffy about its “fake fizz” method of manufacture and the “provocative" marketing campaign.

Obnoxiousness as a brand attribute...?

Others suggest that the English wine market to date has been all about building a reputable quality brand at premium prices, and that a bunch of johnny-come-lately arrivistes looking to drag that brand downmarket really isn’t a smart move for anyone in the long term

So why am I digging up last year’s history now? Well, I was reminded of it when I bumped into a young acquaintance of mine and her friends at the Moot tap room the other week, and who had come along to sample the ales on offer.

Whilst their “designated driver” seemed perfectly happy to drink the coffee, the others were trying halves of the various brews. I made an inane comment about “shouldn’t you all be drinking Prosecco?” and quite rightly copped some abuse, good-natured though it was. 

It seemed that this particular group of twenty-somethings really didn’t care much for “Prosecco culture” and its connotations, and so I thought it would be a good time to raise their awareness of MDCV’s premier products, the “Harlot” range (examples of which were indeed available to sample at the Moot bar).

After the initial incredulity and laughter, out came the iPhones or whatever for verification and then the data searching. Within about 30 seconds, they had found a lot of the references I used in this post and some more besides.

Their verdict on the “provocative” advertising...?

One of VF's "Harlot" lovers "having fun"...

“Yuk”. “Tacky”. “Naff”. “Insulting to women”. “Condescending” were the more printable ones. There followed a very amusing discussion about the naming of a male-oriented product along the same lines, with suggestions such as “Gigolo”, “Himbo” and “Manslut” as potential brands (again, just the more printable ones).

From there, things went downhill, morally speaking. If Vineyard Farms really wanted to shock and “be provocative”, then why not call their wine no I won’t type that here.

All of which brings me to my point. Just what are MDCV UK/“The Silverhand Estate” trying to achieve? Are they looking to “shock” in their quest (on all fronts) to be “different”? Believe me, I have recently learned first-hand that Gen Z are pretty much unshockable. They are also well-informed, incredulous and funny.

As one of my new acquaintances suggested in a more serious aside, the “Harlot” campaign seemed rather childish and outdated. It was like an attention-seeking toddler trying to upset its middle-class mummy by shouting “Knickers! Bum! Willy! Poo!” All this clapped-out “Refuse To Conform” shtick is a totem from my old generation, not their young one.

Another suggested that these days, only a woman could get away with devising an advertising campaign that seemed to demean women. The result? Four young women who now won’t touch the Silverhand/MDCV brand with a barge pole and who may be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of “brand poisoning”.

MDCV UK don’t seem to be playing a very clever game at the moment. What’s worse is that they seem oblivious to the long-term consequences for themselves as well as for everybody else.

Their behaviour has blighted the lives of the residents of the little hamlet of Upper Bush. The residents' powerful account of this on the opening day of the public inquiry for the Vineyard Farms billionaire’s vanity winery must have surely made an impression on the planning inspector.

Vineyard Farms’ distant attitude throughout the winery planning process has also pissed off many of their three thousand neighbours in Cuxton. Can they really, long-term, survive the hostility of so many alienated local people, many of whom will now be actively watching their every move?

And now in addition, their brash, boastful and just plain weird marketing seems to have pissed off both some of the UK wine trade and their potential customers. 

So won’t we all just laugh and laugh if, perchance, they have managed to piss off the Planning Inspectorate as well?

Millington v. The Green Belt...

Way back in September 2021, I poured scorn on what I thought was an outrageous piece of sophistry by Vineyard Farms in their planning application for their luxury winery on green belt land at Upper Bush near Cuxton.

Central to the applicant’s case throughout the planning process has been the claim that the proposed 16,000m2 £30 million tourist, hospitality and manufacturing facility comprising of an above-ground restaurant, café, visitor’s centre, wine-tasting area and shop, designed to serve an initial 65,000 visitors a year, combined with a subterranean (and therefore not visible) wine factory having a capacity to produce up to 10m bottles of wines a year, is a mere “agricultural building”.

This argument is important to them, possibly because it’s the only one they have.

National planning guidelines state that:

“A local planning authority should regard the construction of new buildings as inappropriate in the Green Belt”.

…and that:

“When considering any planning application, local planning authorities should ensure that substantial weight is given to any harm to the Green Belt. ‘Very special circumstances’ will not exist unless the potential harm to the Green Belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm resulting from the proposal, is clearly outweighed by other considerations”.

However, they go on to state:

“Exceptions to this are…buildings for agriculture and forestry…”

This exception allows the applicants to bypass considerations of satisfying the “very special circumstances” that set a very high bar in terms of green belt development, one that even this design would probably not otherwise clear.

To “lay” people such as ourselves, it would seem that such a large facility, with its tourist elements so prominently placed on view in such a protected and environmentally-sensitive landscape, could hardly be considered to be an “agricultural building”.

It seems laughable. Indeed, Medway Council's planning officers should have thrown it all out at the pre-application stage and saved everyone (especially themselves) a load of unnecessary grief.

It all seems rather at odds with Gravesham Borough Council's unwillingness to support Meopham Vineyard's application to build a similar but much more modest winery overlooking Happy Valley in Meopham.

Nevertheless, a legal precedent exists that would appear to justify such a thing, one which has been extensively quoted by the applicant since pre-application days.

Just a farm shop, guv'nor, honest, just like wot you'd get on any other farm...

And when a guy like Mr. Sasha White KC (Vineyard Farms’ advocate and one of the leading legal planning experts in the UK) is telling you that this is indeed the case, then suddenly you have to take it very, very seriously indeed.

This legal precedent initially arose (perhaps somewhat ironically) out of a dispute around traffic. David Millington ran (and still runs, I think) the Wroxeter Roman Vineyard, which is located near Wroxeter, not far to the east of Shrewsbury in Shropshire.

Compared to the Vineyard Farms operation it is tiny, with a mere 12 acres under vines. To help his little vineyard along, Mr. Millington and his family started providing visitors with snacks and drinks in addition to making and selling his wine on site.

His little winery, a typical example of an agricultural “crinkly tin” shed, backs on to a few houses and it seems that the local residents started to object to the traffic that began to visit Mr. Millington’s increasingly popular venue.

Initially, the local authority tried to block Mr. Millington making, and then selling, his wines and eventually (as these things can do when you have the money to follow it through) it wound up going all the way up to, and then beyond, the Secretary of State, to be debated in the High Court by some of the most senior judges in the land.

The upshot was that Millington v. The Secretary of State (1999) established that:

“...the making and selling of wine from grapes grown on the premises (associated vineyard), including tours and tastings, are classified as ‘ancillary agricultural activities’ where the growing of grapes is the primary use. Therefore, winemaking is classified as an agricultural activity (and)… associated vineyard shops and other ancillary businesses on-site are just that; ancillary.” (see reference 1).

This precedent was evidenced in the applicant’s pre-application Planning Statement. It was uncritically accepted by Medway Council’s Planning department until after the planning committee meeting of 8 December 2021, when the planners finally stopped copying Vineyard Farms' homework and got some independent advice. This told them exactly what the scheme's objectors had been telling them for three months, i.e. that the applicant’s proposals constituted “inappropriate development”.

I suspect that by then, Medway Council’s planners, who had been passionate advocates of the Vineyard Farms’ billionaire Xanadu since pre-app days, were now in too deep to back away.

Thus, the planning officers still recommended that the Planning Committee should approve the scheme at the March 2022 meeting, something that the elected councillors of the committee declined to do.

In the subsequent formal rejection notification (written by Medway’s planning officers) green belt considerations were not cited as a reason for rejecting the applicant’s proposals, possibly because Medway Council didn’t fancy now challenging the High Court precedent it had previously accepted as valid.

The "Rule 6 parties" (i.e. Cuxton Parish Council and their supporters) were subsequently advised by the Planning Inspectorate not to formally contest green belt issues at the inquiry, as this may leave them liable for a cost award against them. Pay up or shut up is how major planning applications seem to be decided these days.

On the opening day of the planning inquiry the Vineyard Farms advocate, Mr. Sasha White KC, spelt out that in his legal opinion, a ruling applied to a family-run business operating out of a shed was equally applicable to a Lord Foster £30m pleasure dome, 16,000m2 in total floor area and requiring a staff of 80 to run it.

As “lay” people, we are obviously in no position whatsoever to question Mr. Sasha White KC’s expert opinion on this matter. I certainly wouldn’t dare to. Jesus, that guy would have me on toast...

Nevertheless, I have to repeat that it just seems incredible that a principle applied (not unreasonably) to a small family winery operating out of a modest tin shed is now being used to justify the building of a £30m restaurant, café and hospitality complex with an above-ground area of approximately 4500m2 (and where 80% its projected 82 staff are involved in hospitality activities rather than bottled wine production) on protected green belt land.

Farmyard animals settling down for the evening in their "agricultural building..."

Towards the end of the formal transcript of the Millington case, Lord Justice Schiemann was recorded as making the following observation, however:

“My own instinctive view on the arguments which we have heard is that the making of wine or cider or apple juice on the scale with which we are concerned is a perfectly normal activity for a farmer engaged in growing wine grapes or apples…” (my emphasis).

This seems to imply that some consideration does indeed need to be given to the scale of winery operation in the context of the above judgement. i.e. what is “perfectly normal” for a vineyard of a dozen or so acres working out of a tin shed may not be for one of, say, 1200 acres and a winery with a total floor area of 1.6 hectares in green belt land.

As stated earlier, the winery that was the subject of the above dispute is the Wroxeter Roman Vineyard, which is located in the Shropshire Hills AONB but is obviously not designated green belt land.

Aerial views that compare the scale of the Wroxeter Roman Vineyard to that of the appeal scheme are shown below.

Google maps screen grab of the Wroxeter vineyard area. The winery building is just visible at centre

.

Google maps screen grab of the VF winery, same scale.

From Google maps, it can be estimated that the size of the Wroxeter winery building is approximately 370m2. At approximately 4500m2, the visible part of the appeal scheme is an order of magnitude greater than the winery that was the subject of the above judgement.

In terms of scale, I really suspect that Mr. Sasha White KC is pushing the envelope on this one. Not that I’d dare tell him that to his face, of course.

It has been said that, given that the manufacturing part of the appeal scheme comprises 85% of the building’s operational space and is below the ground line, the winery can be compared to an iceberg. In terms of its visible impact, all that can be seen are the hospitality areas.

And as the Titanic found out, it’s the bit you can see that really has the impact.

It’s not just the scale of operation that casts doubt over the applicability of the Millington judgement to the VF winery. There are additional green belt sensitivities to consider. The Wroxeter winery is not sited in green belt land. 

As stated earlier, NPPF green belt development criteria set a “high bar” of “very special circumstances” to permit new developments within green belt land. If the appeal scheme was not considered to be an agricultural building, it is unlikely that it would meet the “very special circumstances” criteria.

While “Gross Value Added” (GVA) estimates provided by the applicant’s clever-clever accounting agents look superficially impressive, when assessed against the overall local economic activity, they are trivial.

Provision of perhaps 150 largely low-skilled jobs of a low-end type (hospitality or agricultural) that employers are already struggling to fill, and in areas of low unemployment like Cuxton, Cobham or Luddesdown, hardly suggest “very special circumstances”.

Similarly, the VF winery is looking (so it says) to bring in 65,000 visitors a year. Medway annual tourism figures are around 4.5 million. An overall increase to Medway’s tourist visitor numbers of 1.4% hardly seems significant.

Other planning guidelines talk about the “need” for a facility that justifies the sacrifice of green belt AONB.

Wine is hardly an essential and there are plenty of other suppliers in the UK in terms of meeting any national “need” anyway. Having planted 700 acres of vines in such a hurry, VF definitely need a manufacturing base, but why at the Upper Bush AONB? 

Because they want their visitors to enjoy the view out of their restaurant window across the Bush Valley, that’s why. That’s hardly a “need” in terms of national or local requirements. 

Other local vineyards, such as Meopham or Chapel Down, are quite happy to manufacture away from point of harvest. Why can’t Vineyard Farms?

Another factor is that the Millington precedent was established over 20 years ago. The world has changed much since then. Perception of the value of unspoiled green belt AONB land (and indeed, protection of the environment in general), especially in a crowded and highly-developed area such as North Kent, has become much sharpened, and particularly as a result of Covid lockdowns.

The use of an elderly legal precedent to justify what is essentially the construction of a viticultural theme park in precious green belt land seems inappropriate by the standards of today.

There are implications for green belt in general as well. Approval of this scheme could set a precedent that would open up all green belt/AONB land to other such developments. If one billionaire tax-exile is allowed to build a vanity winery on green belt land, then they’ll all want one. Is this a good thing?

Mr. Sasha White KC is arguing the case for upholding the Millington precedent because he is being paid to by his client. He is advancing that argument because he considers it to be a strong one, for sure, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right.

Unfortunately, the local community was unable to afford to engage the legal services required to argue otherwise at this inquiry. The threat of having costs awarded against them also helped to silence any formal community argument against green belt development.  Even then, can the issue really be resolved at this planning inquiry?

Given this question of the exact applicability of the Millington precedent to the vast scale of the appeal scheme and its criticality in this appeal, it may need a legal debate that is perhaps outside the scope of this inquiry.

It’s hard to see quite what is going on in the background to all this. Neither Medway Council nor Vineyard Farms wanted green belt issues on the agenda, for obvious reasons. It was the Planning Inspectorate that raised them for discussion.

Vineyard Farms simply have too many highly-paid and highly-polished subject matter experts arguing for them on their behalf for them not to win their appeal under normal circumstances. But this is an extraordinary development, and one that may set a potentially disastrous precedent for green belt/AONB landscapes across the whole of the UK.

Ultimately this will go before the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, for final approval. One would hope that he might refer this case to m’learned friends, in order to debate the assertion of Mr. Sasha White KC that in the eyes of the law, a small tin shed serving 12 acres of vines is just the same as a £30m 16,000m2 luxury vinicultural theme park set in 900 acres of a green belt AONB.

Let's see...

References:

1)    South Downs Local Plan, Viticulture Technical Advice Note, April 2021, p10, 3.6.

https://www.southdowns.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SDNPA-Viticulture-Technical-Advice-Note-TAN.pdf