Welcome to the Winter edition of our newsletter and a very Happy New Year to you. In this quarter's edition our Regional Head of Property Sales, Matthew Allen, provides a helpful property market update and Will Taylor updates us on the challenges facing farmers in the 2015 agricultural year. For those interested in diversifying out of agriculture and perhaps into some form of renewable energy, we also include an update from our Sector Head Darren Edwards, who warns that 2016 is going to be a challenging year following severely cut feed-in tariffs. Darren is supported regionally by Hywel Morse, so please feel free to contact either of them directly should you wish to discuss your options further.

Permitted Development Rights for conversion of redundant agricultural buildings into residential use have caused both elation and confusion since their introduction and accordingly Amy Hutsby of our Banbury office writes about where we are now, whilst our HS2 expert Jonathan Perks brings us up to date with the latest HS2 news. We round up with our Meet The Team section which provides links to our Thame and Banbury contact pages as well as reporting on Will's recent success with his professional exams - Well done to Will, we're very proud to have you on board!