Our Vision..

Hello everyone,

Firstly I just want to say a huge huge THANK YOU to everyone who has supported us so far, either by following us on social media, sharing our page or donating via our crowdfunding page, we are so thankful for every single bit of support we receive.

I thought I would take this opportunity to jump on here and go into a bit more detail on our vision and what we plan to achieve at Project Zero on The Farm.

So as you can see from our website, there’s a lot of information on there already on what we plan to achieve and what kind of things we need to be able to accomplish this, however this is only the tip of the iceberg and we have so many ideas and plans that we can’t wait to get started on. Below I have done a bit of a timeline on what we are planning to do, when we’re planning to do it and what’s included in each of theses steps..

Step 1: Register as a Charity

So our first step, before even being able to purchase land and get started on the exciting stuff, is to register as a charity. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, there are a lot of legislations and documents we have to complete, once these have been done we can then start to fill in our application form and get that sent off. Fingers crossed that will come back as accepted first time but if not, it should be pretty straightforward to edit the bits we need to so we can send it off again.

Being a registered charity opens the door to so many more opportunities for us, there are lots of government grants and funding (lottery funding for example) that we can apply for and we can start to get in touch with some local news and radio stations and we can also start to contact some businesses. There's a lot of specialist equipment we will need to make the farm fully sustainable so by contacting some of these companies we are hopeful that some of them may even offer to give us what we need either free of charge in exchange for a write up on our website or at a discounted rate. Many companies want to make their businesses a lot more sustainable so by supporting a project like ours, it gives them the opportunity to not only help us but to see how what we are doing could help them. We are also planning on contacting some social media influencers who have particular interests in sustainability and hopefully by getting someone in the public eye in support of us, this will help to spread the word even more and reach many more people.

Step 2: Find a land agent & solicitor

Before we can purchase some land, we need to not only find the right piece of land in the right location but we also need to make sure it’s suitable for our plans and find someone who can help us with the legal side of things. As soon as we have the money to purchase land then we can find someone to hep us with this. At this point we also plan on doing any first aid training, DBS checks and buying the right insurance for residential trips. Alternatively if anyone would be so kind as to offer their services at a discounted rate or free of charge, that would be a massive help!

Step 3: Land

The land we purchase has to be exactly right. It needs to be in the right location (ideally the South Hams), on a good route so that we can at some point add a roadside stall to sell our produce, ideally have a water supply and some woodland and we need to have the permissions to be able to do what we want on it when the time comes.

We’ve budgeted around £150,000 for some land, unless this is gifted to us. If you or anyone else you know has some land that you believe would be suitable for us and maybe it’s land you don’t want or don’t use, please get in touch as we’d be so grateful if you’d consider gifting it to us or selling to us at a lower price.

Step 4: Water & Solar

Once we have our land, the next step is to make it usable by adding water and solar. We need a bore hole to use as our water source, this will allow us to extract our own water to use on the farm, we will also need a pump and UV filter to go with this to make the water safe to drink. We will then need to install solar panels and a battery which we will use to produce our own electricity, we’d also need a barn to put any wiring and equipment in that needs to be kept dry.

Step 5: Ground Works

This step includes installing paths, driveways, parking and fencing. We aim to do as much of this as possible ourselves but we may need to employ a builder at some point to help us.

Step 6: Security

Once we’ve got the main ground works done and added solar panels etc to the land, we need to make it completely secure. For this reason we would need to install some secure gates and some CCTV to be able to monitor the land from home.

Step 7: Chickens, Outbuildings & Storage

So although our main aim is to be an educational sustainability project, we need to be able to generate an income for the charity to be able to achieve our plans. We plan on purchasing roughly around 30 hens which we will then breed until we reach our target of 900 hens. We will then sell the eggs we produce to local businesses or via a roadside stall to make some money. At this point we would also need 3 large hen houses (to house 300 hens each), an insulated breeding shed, brooding boxes and heat lamps for the chicks, water and feeders, a storage barn and chicken feed. We also plan on installing shelters for the other animals that we plan on getting.

At this point we then hope to be able to welcome visitors to the site to look around.

Step 8: Transportation

At this point we will need to buy some transportation and farm vehicles to enable us to do some bigger builds and to transport livestock. We would need a larger 4x4 type electric vehicle, a trailer, an electric ride on mower and an electric gator. Unfortunately electric vehicles of any kind come at a much higher cost than normal vehicles so we are hoping we may be able to get some help with this from local businesses.

Step 9: Temporary Dwelling & Guest Accommodation

Once we are breeding chickens and using heat lamps etc, we would need someone on site 24 hours a day. To do this we would need to have accommodation on site for us to live in so that we are able to breed and look after the chickens full time and also as a security measure, having accommodation will also enable us to work on the project full time and start to get things in place for schools, businesses and the public to come and visit. 

At the same time as building some temporary accommodation we will also start to build the accommodation for school residential trips, for this we plan on building 2 bunkhouses. Each of these to sleep around 15 people. They will include a sleeping area, washing facilities, communal area and they will be fully accessible for those with additional needs. We plan on laying these out with a communal outside covered area between the two which will be used for cooking, campfires and activities. 

At this point we’d also need to install hot water heating and a heat pump as well as a septic tank.

Step 10: Agricultural Equipment

Our next step is to buy the equipment we need to be able to grow fruit and vegetables on the land, this will be used for ourselves, residential stays and any surplus will be sold. 

Step 11: Shop

Once we are producing a decent amount of eggs we would be a the stage where we could start to sell some. We will use some of the eggs for personal use as well as selling to local businesses, the rest would be sold on a roadside stall. We need to build a little stall with some CCTV for this. 

Step 12: Animals

Now we’ve put this towards the bottom of our timeline as this is when we expect to have ALLl the animals we plan on having however we will be adding animals to our farm as soon as we are able to do so and probably a lot earlier than this. We hope to have many animals including; goats, alpacas, donkey’s, shetland ponies, sheep, pigs, ducks, rabbits and guinea pigs. We are hoping that the majority of our animals will be rescue animals or those in need of rehoming so won’t cost us anything.

Step 13: SEN Garden

Our last step will be to add in a SEN garden, this will be able to be used by visitors, local groups for hire and all schools and businesses that visit us. We are planning on including musical areas, wildflowers and sensory experiences.

In total this takes us to our £800,000 budget. Although this sounds like a big figure, initially we only need between £150,000 and £200,00 to get started, that’s 40,000 people donating £5 each!

So there we have it, that’s our plan, or there about. There could be some changes along the way and we are very aware that things may need to be moved around or that there could be some hidden costs along the way. But hopefully with everyones support we can get this plan started very soon and build something great for the community and beyond. 

If anyone reading this thinks they could help in anyway, be it by donation or maybe by pledging us something that we need, we would love to hear from you, you can click the button below to make a donation via our just giving page. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at thefarm@projectzero.org.uk, equally if you have any questions or have any other queries feel free to reach out to us.

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Thank you,

Hannah & Richard xx