All aspects of what we do are affected by climate change and we endeavour to put the environment at the heart of our decision making.
Farming
We have placed half of the farm into options within the Countryside Stewardship scheme. This means that we are growing grass margins around fields. This helps to prevent nitrates from the soil being leached (washed) into watercourses. Their careful management helps ground nesting birds have a breeding habitat.
We grow areas of wild flowers and winter food mixes to provide winter cover and feed for various animals and provide pollen and nectar for bees in the spring and summer.
Since 2012 we have planted over 2500 trees on site and have plans for more. In late 2022 we had a community initiative whereby people from the local village came and helped plant a new woodland, so that they could have a positive impact on the landscape. They were all rewarded with some lovely lunches from Lolleywood Café!
Areas which suffer from run off after intense rain have been carefully managed so that the run off is slowed down and we capture as much water as possible to use for other purposes.
Commercial
The whole site is heated using biomass. This means that we burn wood for heat. This may not sound very environmentally friendly, but all timber is sourced from an accredited forestry scheme and complies with the strict BSL rules, so that we know the process is carbon neutral.
The site obviously uses a large amount of electricity. To counteract this, we are having a 60kw solar array installed which will provide a large proportion of the electricity used on site.
Electric vehicle charging stations are being installed, which are being wired up in such a way that they can run from a battery which will be charged using the excess power generated by the solar but not used by the site.
This is just the start; we fully expect that we will be installing more of the above over the coming decade.
