Nearly 80 tractors will be coming into the city centre and circling York’s inner ring road in a clockwise direction via Walmgate Bar after 10am to protest changes to agricultural inheritance tax in October’s Budget.
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Farmers have reacted with anger and dismay to the changes for agricultural businesses, which limit the existing 100 per cent of tax relief for farms to the first £1 million of combined agricultural and business property.
Stephen Ridsdale, and East Yorkshire farmer and one of the tractor protest organisers (Image: Supplied) Stephen Ridsdale, a farmer from the Pocklington area and one of the organisers of the local protest, said the gathering is set to travel for a meet at York Livestock Centre in Murton Lane, close to the Grimston Bar roundabout for 9am in the morning.
After hearing from a number of speakers on site, the protest is expected to leave for York city centre.
Stephen said the gathering will be made up of ‘like-minded independent farmers coming together’, with almost 80 tractors pre-registered this morning (December 10) and farmers from Ilkley and Pontefract also expected to join.
The group has asked for a donation of £5 per tractor with all proceeds going to York Foodbank which Stephen said was to emphasise the work done by farmers to ensure people are fed.
The East Riding of Yorkshire farmer said: “We would like to hope the government would look at the whole situation.
“They have allowed £1 million relief each but the problem is farming is a capital intensive business, a tractor can cost £150,000, a combine harvester £350,000, and a herd of cows £700,000.
“The returns on the capital we invest are constantly being squeezed.”
He said his family farm makes enough to live on and put a little away each year but said he could face a £600,000 tax bill after the introduction of the new limit on inheritance tax relief and would like to see an exemption for the more elderly farmers, among some of the other concerns raised by protesters.
Last month an estimated 13,000 people gathered in Westminster to protest against the Budget’s impact on farming, with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, TV personality Jeremy Clarkson and leading politicians Kemi Badenoch, Sir Ed Davey and Nigel Farage among them.
On Wednesday, tractors are expected to travel into the capital from across the country, including from Exmoor, Shropshire, Somerset and the home counties.
The vehicles will line up on Whitehall from 10am, there will be speeches at noon and a slow drive around central London from about 12.45pm.
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