A YORK hotel has been revisited to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).

Last month, the CLA celebrated its birthday, a 110 years since the Yorkshire Land and Property Defence Association, the forerunner of the CLA, held its first-ever meeting at The Principal York Hotel, formerly The Station Hotel.

From that point, the organisation began to lobby MPs on topical agricultural issues.

The following year it joined forces with the newly established Central Land Association in London, creating an influential industry body that is today the association now known as the CLA.

CLA director north Dorothy Fairburn said: “It is exactly 110 years since the Yorkshire Land and Property Defence Association – the forerunner of the CLA – held its first-ever meeting at The Station Hotel in York.

“Over the past century, the organisation has grown from a small regional lobbying group into one of the country’s most active and influential rural economy campaigners, representing more than 30,000 members involved in more than 250 different types of businesses.

“CLA members own and manage more than 50 per cent of rural land in England and Wales.

“I am delighted to be able to mark this historic occasion with members of the families that have helped shape our agricultural heritage in the CLA’s birthplace of York.

“Despite all the changes over this period, the CLA has remained steadfast in amplifying the voice of rural landowners and farmers, and will continue to do so in future.”

Lord Middleton, of Birdsall, current president of the CLA’s Yorkshire Branch, and whose great grandfather was a founding committee member, said: “As Lord Harewood, who chaired the first meeting of the CLA said ‘there was never a time during his lifetime, and he was born in the famous Corn Law year, when agriculture in this country so greatly required united organisation to put pressure on Parliament’.

“The CLA is as relevant today as it was then, especially with regard to Brexit and its implications for landowners and farmers.”