Workers on an Aberdeenshire farm are living in “unacceptable“ accommodation, an ITV News investigation has found.
Seasonal workers at Castleton – one of the country’s biggest, most prestigious fruit farms – are being given substandard accommodation and “undignified” living conditions.
The family-run farm, owned by Ross and Anna Mitchell, has had a visit from royalty in recent years, and their company website boasts that you’ll see their fruit on the shelves at major supermarkets such as Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose, and Lidl.
However, workers have told us about “overcrowding” in the static caravan accommodation provided to seasonal workers.
ITV News has obtained footage showing two people – sometimes strangers – sleeping almost side by side in small caravan bedrooms.
The workers tell us they do a physical job by day, and then they “must sleep in one position because there is barely room to move” for the six months they live on Castleton Farm.
There’s also evidence of the furniture in the caravans being aged, in some cases clearly damaged.
ITV News has also learned how a two-bedroom caravan at Castleton is being rented out for approximately £1,200 per month.
That is well above the going rate for two-bed accommodation in the area.
For context, a modern two-bedroom apartment is commonly listed at less than half that price in the nearest towns.
“There’s no privacy – you lose your dignity living like this,” one worker at Castleton told us under the condition of anonymity.
Despite paying such high rent already, these workers said they have also been threatened with a £100 fine if the caravan is deemed to be untidy and say they face weekly inspections.
“We came here to do a job but this is not how we expected workers in Great Britain would be treated,” the worker said.
“It feels like we are being discriminated against.”
Seasonal workers are not being given equal protections in law, and that is due to a legal loophole identified in ITV’s investigation.
Caravan accommodation housing this many people should normally require HMO licences, and would normally be subject to inspections by local authorities – but caravans for seasonal farm workers are specifically exempt for this.
The legislation is devolved, so ITV News showed its footage from Castleton to Scotland’s First Minister who called it “deeply troubling”.
“Those conditions look unacceptable,” John Swinney said in response to the evidence presented to him.
“Obviously the points you’re putting to me about cost [of the caravan accommodation] are equally troubling as well.”
He added he will now look into closing the legal loophole, saying: “I will certainly explore that.”
In a statement, Castleton Farm told us they try to avoid having strangers sharing bedrooms, and said, “Castleton Fruit Ltd is a family owned and run business.
“We have supplied the UK’s major supermarkets for over 30 years. As part of this we are independently audited regularly, which includes an assessment of how we treat our workforce and our standard of accommodation; workers are randomly selected and interviewed as part of this process.
“Our business is wholly reliant on having a team of workers to carry out all the husbandry, harvesting and packing tasks involved with soft fruit. Without people to do this, we do not have a business.
“There is not a workforce available locally to carry out these tasks, so we must recruit from overseas and therefore have to attract workers by offering good living and working conditions.
“It makes good business sense for us to have workers choose to return to us the following year. Our returnee rate in 2024 from 2023 is 73% which I feel speaks for itself.”
Castleton Farm adds that they are “replacing static style caravans with modern chalet style accommodation,” and say, “we take great pride in the accommodation and conditions we provide,” which they say “represents good value compared with private sector accommodation.”
The farm in Aberdeenshire is not the only place where the investigation found concerns about accommodation.
Footage also shows evidence of mould and dampness on the walls of an old, leaky caravan at one location in Essex.
The windows on the accommodation at Leabank Nursery are visibly in a state of disrepair, the furniture is stained, the heater doesn’t work, and even the toilet is broken.
Seasonal workers from Central Asia came to the UK on six month visas to support the country’s agricultural sector, and their job was to grow and pick aubergines.
But they were being charged £300 a month per person to live in the caravans they said were “unhealthy and dangerous” – with three workers having to share two beds.
“The caravan was disgusting and cold”, Azamat Bekturov, a seasonal worker from Kazakhstan, told us.
He showed us footage from his caravan at Leabank Nursery, and told us how he had to pay for it from the minimum wage job he was doing.
“There weren’t even enough beds – I had to sleep sitting on a chair,” he said.
“Then they gave me an old sofa from the barn that smelled of cat urine. If we complained, they told us this is all that was available for us.
“Sometimes they were shouting at us, telling us to work faster, even though we were at the limit of our capabilities. The relationship felt like slaves.”
The owner of Leabank Nursery has denied the allegations ITV News put to him.
ITV also shared our findings with the labour provider for this farm, who told us the seasonal workers have since been transferred elsewhere – and they’ve reported the living and working conditions to the Home Office.
Neither farm in the investigation is being accused of illegality.
Ultimately, government sets the rate for how much seasonal workers can be charged for accommodation, and it is government that issues seasonal worker visas to support Britain’s agricultural sector – worth £14bn to the UK economy.
But neither government, nor local authorities are checking the conditions are suitable, or that the accommodation fairly reflects what workers are being charged.
And that is leaving a bitter taste with those we rely on to harvest our fields and stock our supermarket shelves.
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