Norfolk landowner Gavin Lane becomes CLA deputy president

Gavin Lane, who owns two farms outside King's Lynn and at Tittleshall near Fakenham, has been elected deputy president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).

He said recent extreme weather had proved the need for flood mitigation and more winter storage reservoirs, and he also wants to highlight recurring rural crimes such as hare coursing, fly-tipping and GPS thefts from farm vehicles.

But he is also keen to champion rural landowners' ability to help the nation meet its climate change, infrastructure and housebuilding goals - as long as they are properly supported and incentivised through new government schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

He said it was vital to drive these messages home to all political parties - particularly as, by the time Mr Lane becomes national CLA president at the end of his two-year stint as deputy, there will have been a general election.

"What we try and impress on all political parties is that there is a huge amount of potential in the rural economy for us to deliver, not just on food production, but also on climate change mitigation, and ultimately it is going to be us that is going to have to deliver on house-building targets, on tree-planting targets, on renewable energy, all of these things," he said.

"Our members are definitely up for the challenge. We have seen how much they have changed their farming practices to make them more environmentally-friendly, we’ve seen how they have embraced renewable energy and tree planting.

"They are there for the challenge, and they just need to be enabled by the government to do that."

Mr Lane is also involved with a family residential property portfolio and has diversified into a holiday cottage letting business with his wife Jane.

He was previously the CLA's vice president, and also chaired its business and rural economy committee, and the Norfolk county branch.