The area where we live is, in the main, intensive arable farm land. There is very few locations out of sight of a dwelling of one sort or another, so its extremely difficult to find a sensible location for an air strip. If you suffer similar problems you might benefit from adopting our approach.

Our experience over the past 4 years has completely changed our approach to acquiring a suitable flying site. Relying on the good will of farmers and inducements such as token gestures of monetary gifts to a charity or church, has, in today's agricultural climate, been surpassed by hard financial bargaining.

Land is now worth more money than the crop or live stock occupying it. A farmer is now forced to take every opportunity to optimize the income from his land and he is not likely to take a charitable view to your requests. If however you can approach the problem on a business level and offer sensible financial incentives you may well find the farmer will not only be very receptive but very helpful as well.

Before we came to terms with this situation, we had approached 34 farmers, the National Trust, the Coal Board, the Admiralty and two private land owners in our area. The result of the inquiries was an overwhelming "NO", some said pessimistically "come back next year" and ONE offered a not very encouraging "maybe".

We then acclimatized ourselves to the real world and revisited the "maybe" with an offer of £500 per annum for the use of an acre of grassland. His reply was "Now we're being serious, tell me where you want it (meaning anywhere on his LARGE several thousand acre farm) and it's yours". This complete change in attitude surprised us so we decided to go away and think about it.

A different approach was then tested. We identified our requirements for a flying strip (flat, clear of obstruction, well away from houses, good access etc.) and then set out to locate a potential site. Having found one (on a different farm) we introduced ourselves to the farmer and with polite respectful dialogue succeeded in negotiating the long term use of 1.5 acres (part of a large field) of prime farm land. The field concerned had already been laid to barley but the farmer agreed to grub out the crop on the area that we wanted, sew grass seed and roll it flat provided compensation for loss of the crop was considered.

The fee was finally agreed at £700 per year rent (a little less than we first expected) and a one off charge of £400 for the loss of crop which included grass seed and preparation costs. Having expressed concerns about over stretching our bank balance he agreed to spread the £400 over a two year period.

The facility has the potential of being the best strip we've ever had with the added bonus of year on year continuity without being subjected to the problems of crop rotation and compulsive complainers. When you take into account several tens of acres of unobstructed fly-over area, the farmers willingness to help control the uncultivated area and exclusive use we think we're pretty lucky.

To sum up, if you're willing and able to pay a fair price, it seems you can get exactly what you want.