Westridge Farm, Ryde, Isle of Wight is currently faced with the prospect of becoming a housing estate! A planning application has been submitted by developers to build 475 properties.

The land at Westridge Farm is recorded as having been farmed for centuries. Historic archive documents record farming in the local area and the estate that this land was part of as far back the 13th Century and the Doomsday Book. Generations over centuries have tended this greenfield land.

The Holliday family are the tenant farmers, and have been dairy farming for over 50 years, tending and caring for this farmland. Without planning permission they have the legal right to farm this land for the next two generations under the succession rights set out under an AHA Tenancy.

We have been inspired by the Hollins family of Fordhall Farm (https://www.fordhallfarm.com/story/) in Shropshire. As tenant farmers they faced the prospect of being forced out of their farm due to development. In 2006 they saved their farm from development to become England’s first community-owned farm. Subsequently community owned farms have successfully been achieved in other communities within the UK.

With the support from the community we believe that we could achieve the same for Westridge Farm. Safeguarding Westridge Farm for the future, for the benefit of food, the environment, ecology, the climate and the community.

Let us know your choice for Westridge Farm.

Please answer the short survey.

Thank you

https://savewestridgefarm.org.uk/privacy-notice/