1.7K British farms as vast as city of Leeds disappeared since 2010
31st March 2025
More than 1,700 farms on the outskirts of English towns and cities have disappeared in the past 15 years, the Campaign to Protect Rural England warns.
According to CPRE’s latest report, this loss equates to 56,000 hectares of farmland, an area similar in size to the city of Leeds, and represents a critical loss for both food security and environmental sustainability.
CPRE said that there has been a worrying decrease of nearly 7% in the number of urban fringe farm holdings since 2010.
The overall figure masks the difference between Green Belt (designations that surround the largest towns and cities) and other urban fringe holdings, with Green Belt faring comparatively badly.
In relation to England overall, this supports the view that there is greater pressure on urban fringe holdings, CPRE added.
A spokesperson for the charity explained: “The amount of land used for farming in urban fringe areas is decreasing, with much of this loss occurring in the Green Belt.
“At the same time, smallholdings have been increasing in number, with the potential to increase diversity and positively impact the urban fringe farming landscape.
“Overall, however, there is still much we do not understand about the reasons for these changes, and further research and support is needed to ensure that urban fringe farming is protected and able to thrive.”
Farms located in Green Belt areas
There are a broadly similar number of large farms (above 100ha) in the urban fringe area as in all land nationally. Small to medium-sized farms (those below 100ha) are more present in Green Belt areas than other countryside, including Comparator Areas (CAs).
CPRE said this suggests that Green Belts, rather than an urban fringe location on its own, have an influence in supporting small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) farm businesses, although it is unclear why this is the case from currently available data.
Such locations could therefore provide an advantage for farm viability if businesses are able to tap into many potential customers.
This is especially the case if farms have diversified into selling produce directly or providing services such as stabling. In such cases, consolidation into larger units may be less necessary or desirable.
Although numbers of urban fringe farms have declined in recent decades – with the biggest losses noted in small to medium-sized farms – this fall has now stabilised, the charity confirms.
Increaseing number of ‘micro farms’
Despite an overall rate of decline, very small farms have bucked the trend, rising in numbers more recently, reflecting a similar rise in national figures.
CPRE said: “Frustratingly, we lack a clear explanation for the statistical data, which makes it difficult to target support for the farms that need it most.
“Explaining the dramatic increase in very small farms is not straightforward. New businesses, for example, ‘micro farms’, could be forming as SME farms are broken up or sell land.
“It could reflect the economic difficulties of medium-sized farms: they are too large to adapt to niche markets alone but too small to compete on economies of scale selling into commodity markets, where margins can be wafer thin.
“The fall in the largest farms may be surprising, but not so if it reflects increased merging of farms, as other data indicates, with each farm, on average, managing more land: despite falls in overall numbers over 100ha, the area covered by these farms has increased by 330,000ha from 2010 to 2021.”
Changes in types of production farms
CPRE has also noticed that between 2010 and 2021, there were large changes in the types of production farms specialised in across England, with general cropping seeing one of the biggest increases (up 22%) and dairy the largest decrease (down 29.2%).
Overall, these national changes are reflected in the urban fringe, but there were bigger losses for each falling farm type, particularly cereals, grazing livestock and horticulture, and smaller increases.
For specialist pigs, there was a loss of urban fringe farms against a national trend of increasing number of holdings overall.
The charity added that numbers of dairy, horticulture and mixed farms “have fallen dramatically” since 2010, both nationally and in the urban fringe.
Dairy farms are down nearly a third nationally, and horticulture holdings are down a fifth. Mixed farms also fell by 14%. This decline was notably greater in urban fringe areas, reflected in falling numbers of urban fringe farms more generally.
Recommendations to strengthen British farming
Since 2011 there has been a notable fall in vegetable production in the UK, which may shed light on the identified falls in horticultural enterprises in the urban fringe. Furthermore, and concerningly, the rate of change appears to have accelerated sharply since 2021.
A spokesperson for CPRE continued: “Drawing on previous analysis from 2006, we can speculate on reasons for the more recent changes in urban fringe farming. These include the knock-on impact of wider societal changes (such as the development of major infrastructure); the need and appetite for other activities to supplement financial income (e.g. stabling, education); and the impact of local food networks.”
The charity added that issues which are preventing urban fringe farming from evolving and thriving are multitude: from planning system issues to a lack of clear understanding, these failures need our attention if changes are to be made.
“Our recommendations to strengthen farming on the urban fringe include improved policies, targeted support for farmers, and further data collection and analysis to better inform next steps,” CPRE concluded.
Read the report here.
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