[2024] UKUT 149 (LC)

Our account here is taken from the evidence of fact given by Mr Andrew Friday, director of Fridays, and by Mr Evgeni Genchev of the Valuation Office Agency for the respondent. Their evidence was consistent and Mr Genchev’s was unchallenged, while Mr Friday was cross-examined only briefly.

Fridays is one of the country’s largest producers of free-range eggs, producing some 4 million eggs a week. Chequer Tree Farm is the company’s headquarters, encompassing some 530 acres in rural Kent. It also owns or operates a number of other farms within a ten-mile radius and farms some 2,000 acres of arable land, including the land at Chequer Tree Farm itself, to grow wheat and barley to make chicken feed. Free-range eggs or organic eggs are produced at the four parcels known as Combwell, Tolehurst, Summer Hill and Waterlane Farms (we refer to these four farms together as the “Fridays Farms”).

It is agreed that much of the land and some of the buildings at Chequer Tree Farm are exempt from non-domestic rating, including 482 acres of the agricultural land used to produce barley and wheat, a mill store, feed mill, and chicken houses. The chicken houses were used at the material day (September 2018) to house caged hens; it is agreed that that operation is not material to the current appeal (and it came to an end in 2021). Some other buildings, including the reception, offices, a vehicle workshop and other buildings are assessed for rating; there is no dispute before us about those buildings and we have not been told why some are assessed for rating and some are not.

Three buildings at Chequer Tree Farm are the subject of the single issue before us – whether they should also be exempt from rating. They are the Egg Packing Centre, the Egg Packaging Store, and the Egg Warehouse, which we shall collectively call ‘the three buildings.’ The alternative valuations are agreed. If the three buildings are exempt, an assessment described in the rating list as Food Processing Centre and Premises (part exempt) of £136,000 is agreed; if they are not, the agreed figure is £352,500 RV.