Farm News
Top TV vets to star
at Countryside live
» » TV FAVOURITES JULIAN NORTON
and Peter Wright will take centre stage
at the Great Yorkshire Showground this
Autumn with a new “The Yorkshire Vet at
Countryside Live” event.
Peter Wright and Julian Norton
from The Yorkshire Vet will be the star
attractions of the two-day event in
Harrogate which will be bigger and better
than ever.
Countryside Live, which has
been running at the Great Yorkshire
Showground for 14 years, will get a whole
new look thanks to an exciting new
partnership with The Yorkshire Vet and
Channel 5.
New features will include live Yorkshire
Vet shows in the Main Ring, an expanded
children’s section including Channel 5’s
Milkshake Live show and pop up country
pub as well as special guests.
Julian and Peter are already hugely
popular at the showground, attracting
queues of fans at the Great Yorkshire
Show where they had a special meet
and greet area. They were at the show,
which attracts over 130,000 visitors over
three days, filming The Yorkshire Vet
special episode which will air next month
on Channel 5. Countryside Live is the
Great Yorkshire Show’s sister event which
is always held in the Autumn. This year,
it will be on Saturday October 21st and
Sunday 22nd.
Nigel Pulling, Chief Executive of the
Yorkshire Agricultural Society said:
“After 14 years of putting on a successful
Countryside Live, we are absolutely
delighted to be joining forces with the
hugely popular stars of The Yorkshire Vet.
We saw how popular they were at the
Great Yorkshire and are sure they will go
down a storm in the first ever Yorkshire
Vet at Countryside Live.”
Peter Wright, said: “We are delighted
to bring The Yorkshire Vet to Countryside
Live to the people who watch us, it’s a
new and exciting era for the show. We’re
really looking forward to meeting as many
people who love the show as possible.”
To book go to www.countrysidelive.co.uk
Yorkshire Agricultural Society members
will be entitled to free entry.
WILL WOODLANDS CASE SHEDS LIGHT ON
TAX TREATMENT OF AMENITY WOODLAND
» » WILL WOODLANDS, A PRIVATELY
funded charity whose stated aim is tree
planting for public enjoyment, heritage
enrichment and nature conservation, has
won its appeal against HMRC at the First
Tier Tax Tribunal.
HMRC had claimed that amenity was
non-business use and as such an agreed
area calculation that had been accepted
for 15 years to calculate recoverable VAT
was no longer fair and reasonable and
that an income calculation should be used.
HMRC also proposed a methodology that
attempted to allocate future income each
year albeit this is completely impractical for
the forestry sector.
Will Woodlands had argued, however,
that while their objectives were conserving
and restoring wildlife by acquiring land and
establishing woodland, its woodland was
managed in the same way as a commercial
woodland, other than having slightly higher
standards of wildlife protection (eg with
6 Autumn 2017 www.farmers-mart.co.uk
more bird boxes and wildflower planting)
and greater attention paid to managing
public access.
The Tribunal held that the stated
objectives in the Charity’s accounts and
other documentation was irrelevant, and
that the woodland was run on the same
basis as a commercial woodland with
timber being sold every 20 years or so
when thinning took place. There was also
a long-term aim to fell the timber which
was a valid business purpose even though
trees would take 100 years to reach
maturity.
David McGeachy (pictured), a Partner
and Head of VAT at Saffery Champness,
and a member of the firm’s Landed Estates
and Rural Business Group, said:
“This is good news for the whole rural
sector. This case reaffirms the position that
if there is clear intention to manage the
woodland and to sell the timber, regardless
of whether this will be a significant number
of years in the future, VAT registration and
VAT recovery on costs should be possible
in the interim. This position should be
supportable even if there is a charitable
aim, or an aim of benefiting wildlife in the
interim.”