A housing shortage has meant that developers are becoming highly active again in buying farm land, according to Grahame Storrie, founding partner of Lanarkshire based, Storrie Land.

He told The SF that land – particularly on the perimeter of villages and towns – is the most interest from developers, who are willing to invest in a whole range of prospects, large and small.

It is being driven by planning authorities struggling to reach their planning. “Now is a great time for farmers to release any spare land they might have for sale as planning authorities are often well behind on planning permission, but the government is insisting that they must catch up particularly in the economic housing sector,” he said.

Planners are showing an interest in development prospects, especially in his working sphere around Lanarkshire's towns and villages, where new housing is in high demand.

“They don’t make land anymore and that is why it’s such a precious commodity. Now is a good time for farmers to try to achieve planning due to the fact the government wants more low-cost housing and to not just fulfil that need but also to rejuvenate our towns cities and villages,” said Mr Storrie.

“I am delighted to see this as it's a rejuvenation to our towns and villages that has been lacking for years, it also brings in much needed revenue to those towns, not just via council tax providers but also new potential revenue for local shops and services.

“Personally, I see a lot more of this in the coming years particularly in Lanarkshire villages and other villages throughout Scotland,” said Grahame, who has worked in land sales since 1988 and general estate agency, both domestically and overseas, since that time.

His established Storrie Land two years ago and he reckoned he has already listed more acreage than many other land agents in Lanarkshire and is now keen to expand throughout Scotland. Two major deals in the past year, for instance, totalling some £10m with more in the pipeline and demand for even more.

Mr Storrie added that his farming background with the family coming from a line of farmers originally operating out of the Clyde Valley, but the family had to give this up sadly through time

has helped him and his small team develop good working relationships with developers and farmers.

Having built his agency experience by firstly working at the UK's largest agencies and even at that time working on intranet software for the property market produced by IBM in the 80's , he was one of Scotland’s young achievers in 2000 having started gis first company at 25.

Although leaving school at 16 with one ‘O’ grade he went back to study the first University course at Strathclyde for the real estate business achieving his certificate there.