Green Issues

We are striving to make Occombe a demonstration of sustainability in action. This includes the following examples:

Rainwater Harvesting

Water conservation is becoming more and more important as our household and business consumption continues to rise every year. At Occombe we have installed a rainwater harvesting system that collects rainwater from the roofs and stores it in an underground tank before reusing it to flush the toilets in the visitor centre.

Solar Panels

Thanks to a grant from The Department of Trade and Industry and EDF Energy we have installed solar panels to generate electricity. You can see the photovoltaic panels on the roof of one of the cattle barns. The 60 panels cost £25,000 and generate around 3800 Kwh over a year which is roughly what a domestic property might consume.

Green Buildings

At Occombe we have tried to construct buildings which are as green as possible. This means making them energy efficient and using sustainable building materials. The main Visitor Centre is a timber building with a wooden roof made from larch harvested from our own woodlands. The new Education Centre is built of straw bales again with a wooden roof. We are currently building a new Community Kitchen building which is timer frame with straw bale walls and a wooden roof.

You can watch a video about the education centre build here.

Organic Farming

Occombe is an organic farm. Organic farming is all about producing food in a more "natural" way with minimal reliance on manufactured pesticides or fertilisers. Soil fertility is maintained through crop and animal rotation, green manures and using compost or manure. All produce labelled Organic must be certified to show that it conforms to the government standards. At Occombe the farm had to go through two years of conversion before it achieved organic status. During this time it had a clean break from chemical applications and intensive use and it is now inspected annually by the Soil Association.