In message o.uk, Dave
Liquorice writes
On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:41:32 +0100, Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

3.85 acres. The developers should be able to squeeze 50
townhouses on
to that.
snip
I notice that the "guide price" is $75000 ...

or £50,000/hectare. Trying to decide if that is expensive, ie the
land already has outline planning permission of some sort.

The price for a house plot with planning permission is about £50,000.

I wasn't sure what proportion of a 150 to 200k house would be down to
the land it is built on.

I was looking at a house last year, and I reckoned it was overpriced by
about £40,000, on the possibility of building a 2nd house on the garden.

I've just googled for building plots locally, and one with planning
permission for a 4 bedroom house came up at £165,000 (but that's
probably a £350,000 house.) Also a 3 bed-semi, with adjacent plot at
£250,000, which would be pricing the plot at £75,000, and a plot in the
next town north at £125,000.

If it was a dozen executive homes, rather than 50 townhouses, that would
probably be £200,000 per plot.

More googling finds agricultural land going for £10,000 per acre, and
this would be an inconvenient site for agricultural operations. But
perhaps worth more as a site for a plant nursery, or as rented horse
paddocks.

The guide price is pricing the land as an allotment site, not a
potential residential development.

This is true the entry in the brochure for the Allotments doesn't
mention anything about planning permissions outline or otherwise. If
such any permission existed then I doubt the estate agent would have
left it out, as it adds so much to the value of the land... The
allotments lot is a tiddly part of an estate valued at 10 million.

Reading between the lines of the description I get the "don't even
think about buying this to build on, unless you want a fight with the
council and allotment holders" impression.

There are 31 allotments on the site, if everyone put in £2,500 that
would be £77,500. A buyer of Lot 1 (a whole farm) could well be
willing to sell the alloments to an alloment group just to make it
SEP (Someone Elses Problem). No demands for a water supply, ungraded
security fencing, maintenance of paths and access or WHY...

I was guessing a larger number of allotments. The rent on 31 allotments
wouldn't provide a competitive return on an investment of £75,000, even
before you take expenses into account. (And guide prices, at least on
auctions, are pitched very low.) On the other hand it's far under the
potential value of the land as residential land, so I don't understand
how it has been valued.

I should imagine that the council would support the formation of an
"Allotment Trustees" group, there are other sources of money, some
have already been mentioned. There are national organisation(s) for
Allotments, get in touch with them, they should know about other
sources and should be able to support the formation of a group.
Warning it will be hard work and it almost certainly end up with just
a few determined individuals doing most of the whilst the other
holders sit on their deck chairs by their sheds.

All is not lost!

--
Cheers
Dave.




--
Stewart Robert Hinsley