Tina-Suzanne Davies (Valuation Officer) v Puffin Produce Ltd & Anor

Under paragraph 3(a) of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the same occupier’s use of a building and farming of land does not alone make them occupied together. The question is whether their activities are integrated so that the land and building form a real agricultural unit. Common occupation and joint management at the same time are necessary but insufficient, and geographical distance is relevant but not conclusive. A separate finding that the agricultural land is itself in rateable occupation is not required. A cold store used for potatoes grown by independent farmers is not occupied together with the store occupier’s other crop land where the functional link is absent or insignificant.

The Valuation Officer appealed a decision of the Valuation Tribunal for Wales (VTW), which had allowed proposals by Puffin Produce Ltd (PPL) and, following a corporate restructuring, Puffin Farms Ltd (PFL) to remove three cold-storage warehouses from the rating list. The warehouses stored potatoes grown by independent farmers. PPL also grew other crops on agricultural land held in adjoining, seasonal and longer-term parcels.

At the first material date, none of the potatoes in store had been grown by Puffin. At the second date, Puffin-grown potatoes comprised only a very small proportion of those stored, even assuming they belonged to PFL. The central issue was whether the warehouses were occupied together with agricultural land within paragraph 3(a) of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

1. Appeal allowed. The warehouses did not qualify for the agricultural buildings exemption in paragraph 3(a) of Schedule 5 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988.
2. The appeal concerned the occupation test. The Court of Appeal in Bunyan (VO) v Fridays Ltd [2025] 1 WLR 4112 had confirmed that the 2004 changes to the use test did not alter the occupation test. The guidance in Farmer (VO) v Buxted Poultry [1993] AC 369 therefore remained applicable. The land and buildings must be occupied together so as to form, in a real sense, a single agricultural unit. Common occupation and joint control or management at the same time are necessary conditions, but do not alone suffice. Distance is relevant, not conclusive. The Tribunal’s suggested five-step framework could assist, but was not comprehensive or exclusive and did not replace the statutory wording.
3. The agricultural land did not need to form part of the same hereditament as the buildings. Nor was a separate determination that the land itself was in rateable occupation required. The four ingredients of rateable occupation identified in John Laing & Son Ltd v Assessment Committee for Kingswood Assessment Area [1949] 1 KB 344 did not need to be grafted onto the statutory inquiry. The Tribunal noted the conclusion in Hilleshog Sugar Beet Breeding Co Ltd v Wilkes (VO) [1971] RA 275 that seasonal cropping could be occupation in the rating sense, but held that this separate question did not determine whether the buildings were occupied together with land.
4. The decisive consideration was the functional relationship between the stores and Puffin’s own farming operations. In 2018, all potatoes in store belonged to independent growers and none of Puffin’s own produce was stored there. In 2022, even assuming that PFL owned the small proportion of Puffin-grown potatoes in store, that proportion was not significant. Distance and dispersed seasonal holdings would not themselves have defeated exemption if the stores had been used for crops grown by Puffin on those holdings. But the stores’ use for growers’ crops, combined with no significant functional connection to Puffin’s crop land, meant that common occupation for different aspects of one business was insufficient. The farming-cooperative exemption was not claimed.

1. Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): Allowed the Valuation Officer’s appeal and held that the warehouses did not qualify for the exemption. Citation: [2026] UKUT 236 (LC) .
2. Valuation Tribunal for Wales: Allowed Puffin’s proposals to remove the warehouses from the rating list. No citation for that decision is stated in the judgment.