麻豆约拍

County councils are concerned about how rural areas will cope with new housing targets set by the Labour government. It plans to build one and a half million homes by 2029 and is setting mandatory targets for councils. Many of those new homes are to be built on bits of the green belt which will be reclassified as grey belt - what does this mean for rural England? The County Councils Network says planning needs to be strategic, and that infrastructure like local roads and health services need to be in place before new houses are built.

All this week we've been looking at the impact of the expanding renewables industry on the countryside, today we turn to battery storage facilities on farms. They store the energy generated by solar and other renewables. That energy is then sold back to the grid at times of high demand. They also give farmers a guaranteed income, as energy companies pay them to have the batteries on their land. We visit one farmer who's got battery storage on his land in Hampshire.

The farmer who bought a herd of buffalo after inheriting the family farm. Dagan James' idea was to turn what had been an intensive arable farm into a grassland farm, with more space for nature alongside the livestock. That was 24 years ago, the herd's not as big as it once was, but he says the farm's more sustainable, both financially and environmentally.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith
Producer = Rebecca Rooney