A 54ac grassland farm is on the market in Co Offaly and going to be sold by tender.

The farm is at Bracklin Little, Kilbeggan, and is being sold by GVM Auctioneers’ Tullamore office.

The standout feature of this farm is that it has substantial deposits of sand and gravel.

These lie within an esker running across the land and also underneath other areas of the land.

Quarrying interest

This gravel means that the land is free-draining. It also means that the property could be of interest to commercial investors, perhaps those with quarrying interests, as well as farmers.

The location is 7km from Tullamore, 8km from Kilbeggan and 9km from Tyrrellspass. It is approximately 10km to the M6 motorway. The land has just over 300m of road frontage.

The landowner has had a professional report carried out on the land and its deposits by Apex Geophysics. This involved investigation of nine trial pits across the farm.

There are substantial deposits of sand and gravel under areas of this farm.

Based on this, the auctioneers say that there is potential for extraction of millions of tonnes of sand and gravel, once all permissions are obtained.

Gravel was extracted for farm and local use in earlier decades.

Private treaty tender

This sale is being conducted by private treaty tender, which requires sealed bids from interested parties.

This sale mechanism is not that common for farmland, but regularly used for commercial property and assets.

Auctioneer Gordon Cobbe says that potential purchasers are invited to submit their best bids by 3pm Friday 1 October at 3pm, accompanied by the required deposit and completed tender document.