Roads across the North of Ireland will see major traffic disruption today, Saturday, January 25, with thousands of tractors taking part to oppose inheritance tax changes for farms.
The Ulster Farmers’ Union is organising seven individual tractor runs, including one across Derry.
The runs will all start at 2 pm with up to 400 tractors expected to take part at seven different locations across the North.
The Derry run starts and ends at the former Lishally Livestock Market site in Strathfoyle before moving through Derry city’s Waterside and crossing Craigavon Bridge.
It will then move up through the Cityside and back across the Foyle Bridge.
The processions are being held to protest the British government’s proposed changes to agricultural property relief (APR), which limits the inheritance tax that farmers and landowners must pay when passing farmland on to heirs by up to 100%.
The controversial government plans, announced in the Budget last October, would see inheritance tax imposed on farms worth more than £1m, with a 20% rate on assets above that threshold.
It has been warned that around half of all farms in the north could be impacted by the changes, which the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said are needed to help plug a £22bn hole in public finances left by the previous Conservative government.
Stormont’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has found around half of all farms in Northern Ireland could be impacted, accounting for around 80% of all farmed land.
The UFU has warned that the tax changes will “destroy our agri-food industry, everything we have built up over decades”, and said Saturday’s rallies are “simply the next step, with more action to follow”.
The tractor runs are part of a UK-wide ‘day of action’ that will see similar rallies held in England, Scotland and Wales, organised by the National Farmers Union (NFU), NFU Scotland and NFU Cymru.
Tractor protests over the tax changes have already taken place in English cities including London, Oxford and Reading.
