Length or width?
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Same rules as for shotgun
Certain firearms carry a minimum sentence of 5 years (handguns I suspect).
It would seem logical that firearms that are never legal to own should carry a more significant punishment than those that can be legal but thereās been an admin fuckup.
To keep poachers off your land? 
What do applicants typically cite as their reasons for owning a shotgun these days?
I donāt know about typical. My brother-in-law works as an instructor at a few gun clubs, as a loader on high-end shoots and he also competes (clays) for fun, and a few quid prize money sometimes*. My sister quite often goes with him when his work takes him away for a few days and she just shoots for the companionship and the fun of it.
*Actually most times. Heās good at it.
Iām in the process of applying for mine, I want to do clay pigeon shooting. You donāt actually have to give a reason for a shotgun certificate. For a firearms licence you need to justify why you need a particular gun.
In Greater Manchester itās a really slow process. At least 6 months. Next door in Merseyside itās less than half that. Mine is currently stalled, waiting for my GP to get round to filling out my medical form, which heās had, and the Ā£50 fee for doing so, for about 6 weeks.
I notice the prepper guy had a certificate for 15 shotguns, which were stored appropriately. It was the sawn-off behind the fridge which was the problem. Nutter.
Uncle was a very keen vegetable gardener. He sold the produce to locals and anyone driving past, advertising the fresh produce on sandwich boards along the road in front of the cottage.
Any living thing (except maybe people) that came into his precious garden to nibble on his veg was liable to get itself shot. 
A well fertilised garden per chance?
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Canāt you just leave the gun at the club and not bother with a licence? Or just hire one? I get the whole clay pigeon thing, itās good fun, but having the gun at home just seems all downside to me. Itās really not something I would want at home, or in the car on the way.
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I spent an hour with my b-i-l at the Oxford Gun Club shooting at clays, but the clubās rule was that he had to be āin chargeā of me the whole time. He walked the gun to the place we did the shooting and back again. They werenāt prepared to let unlicensed people walk about the site carrying a gun. So you can do it, but paying a minder might not be cheap.
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+1 to what Graeme has just said, but there are a number of clay clubs round here, so if I wanted to visit another club Iād have to arrange a loan/hire gun there and a minder. It would just be too much trouble, itās not like a golf club where you can just hire a set of sticks and hack your way around on your tod.
You have to have an appropriate safe for them secured to a wall. Best practice is storing the ammo away from the shotgun in its own locked safe too.
Honestly 99.99999999% of shotgun owners are very safe, knowledgable and sensible.
I have a couple of mates who shoot clays.
There is no club house (unless you count a pub after a shoot.)
Most shoots are in a farmers field, the members bring the traps etc and set up on the morning.
There are clubs that have set skeet towers etc but most do not have a secure armoury.
Personally Iām 100% against people having firearms at home (excluding farmers etc) The onus should be on gun clubs to provide armouries and competency certificates that allow people to use the guns on site without an escort.
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You might be amazed how many shotguns are out and about then. I think sussex has around 19,000 certificate holders and most have more than one shotgun.
Not many firearms licences though, I think this is around 300 in sussex.
Personally I have never seen an issue with certificate holders, although I have seized shotguns when attending domestic incidents.
Presumably youād also be against the local bunch of farmers and their friends who meet on one of their farms just south of here, commonly on the Saturday between Xmas and New Year, to shoot at things. I happened upon them when I was out for a walk at the east end of The Fair Mile. They seemed well organised - there were a couple of chaps on the public footpath discouraging anyone from wandering off into the neighbouring field. But it was as Kev describes. The āclubā was in the abstract, not in a concrete building.
Try reading what I wrote 
Thereās a difference between clay shooting clubs and āGunā clubs.The latter tend to cater towards the Firearms owners and, the ones I know of at least, have things like indoor ranges for smaller calibre stuff and secure storage for Firearms. They might have a clay shooting section, especially if they have the outside space, but the club I visited recently stressed that they were pretty much separate entities. Otherwise the vast majority of the former are much as Kev and Graeme describe.