A CATTLE farmer may have to close his farm after the RSPB gave him notice to quit land he has worked for more than two decades.

Jeff Horn has farmed the former ICI land close to Seal Sands in Teesside for 23 years, with just 20 acres of his own and hundreds of acres of land rented from the Teesside Environmental Trust and now managed by wildlife charity the RSPB.

The land surrounds the RSPB's popular nature reserve at Saltholme, which has attracted 500,000 visitors since it opened in 2009.

Now Mr Horn - and business partner and son David Horn - have been given notice to quit 250 acres of grazing and arable land by January 2016. They own 800 cows and employ six members of staff.

Mr Horn, who lives in nearby Cowpen Bewley, near Billingham, said: "We have put a lifetime's work into this. We were led to believe they would manage the land and we could rent it.

"My son and grandson - this is their future, and it is all gone. I might have to close up.

"They have said our tenancy is up for renewal and they are putting it out to tender. They just think they can do what they want.

"What I want to know is, why is a charity putting someone out of business?"

However David Braithwaite, site manager at RSPB Saltholme, said: "This is an issue around a farm tenant who has been given notice to quit.

"We manage, as a partnership, quite a large area that is a nature reserve. Teesside Environmental Trust are the landlords of all the area that David Horn rents under a farm business tenancy, which is approximately 250 acres.

"Part of our charitable aims are to do with traditional farming. These 250 acres have been used in a commercial agricultural sense and every now and again I have to review what we do as a charity in terms of our charitable aims.

"We identified 250 acres that could do better for wildlife and the way we are seeking to do this is by putting the land out to tender. David Horn would be fully entitled, indeed we would be delighted to see an application from him."

The RSPB has already tendered the annual grazing rights, which the Horns once used, and lost the rights.