Environmental & Conservation Policy
Conservation and Being Green
The Lake District National Park is a very
special place, and we care profoundly that our visitors both appreciate
and understand that its special nature is maintained in a sound
sustainable way.
The Lake District has recently been awarded the coveted title of being
the Worlds first accredited green globe travel destination and is
trying very hard to be a truly sustainable tourist destination.
Broadrayne Farm cottages has also just been awarded a certificate
for" Responsible Tourism". We are active conservationists and always
appreciate our guests helping us with recycling and other conservation
issues.
Recent events (foot and mouth, reduction of
subsidies, poor sheep prices and wool prices so low that it costs far
more to clip the sheep than farmers get for the wool has left all hill
farmers in a serious financial position and in a difficult position to
carry out any conservation work.
Our hope is that by caring about the landscape today, we
will be able to enjoy it with our children and successive generations
without shame. We all have a part to play as accommodation providers
and as visitors. Please help. You may consider any contribution that
you are willing to give as being small, but it does make a difference
and, it is much appreciated.
Supporting conservation work within the Lake District from tourist donations and accommodation providers
We are raising funds to restore the footpaths
around the Lake District and also for various conservation projects
such as supporting the raising of water voles and reintroducing them
into the wild in appropriate habitats, improving the red squirrel
population, and so on .
Our Environmental Targets
are:
- to produce all our own eggs (duck and chicken).
- to plant 50+ ash trees for coppicing firewood.
- to plant more native broadleaf trees for animal shelter.
- to plant damsons and other fruit trees for our own consumption. We now have a freezer full of fruit!
- to form specialised wet areas around the farm to encourage frogs etc. This is proving very successful
- to plant more food for wildlife.
- to plant more trees suited to river banks to stabilise our riverbank.
- to beat the bracken around 300 newly planted trees to give them a chance to grow unrestricted.
- to put up more bird nesting boxes.
- to keep up to date our "green notice board" for guests to read to encourage them to adopt good environmental practice.
- to reorganise and improve our recycling area to encourage further good practice.
- to improve our compost heap areas to provide more efficient composting.
- to build greenwood furniture for our guests' use.
- to source more eco-friendly cleaning supplies and
- to source more eco-friendly office supplies.
- work with our local primary school to achieve 'Eco status' and to maintain it
- we have installed our solar panel water
pump which will also be used for demonstration purposes to educate our
local children, the community and our guests as to how effective it can
be.
- to continue lobbying our council for better recycling facilities than is currently available locally.
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While you are in Grasmere do take a look at
where your recent contributions have been used. Over the last
four years visitors contributions collected by several Grasmere
businesses, including ours have helped pay for the restoration of the
very popular lakeshore footpath and the well known Lion and Lamb
footpath over to Easedale.
Our thanks go to everybody who contributed.
As part of our visitor care we are happy to provide:
bike accommodation, advice, map and trail routes both on and off road;
local information and advice including bus and train timetables.
access and loan to our map and walk library (a small donation to the Tourism and Conservation Partnership would be appreciated);
continued car parking on your departure day if we have space;
and
facilities for sorting your rubbish into designated recyclable bins for glass, aluminium drinks cans, paper and cardboard.
We then take all the recyclable rubbish to the correct sites for recycling.
Are you doing your bit? We are trying to do ours.
Our recent contributions to the local environment include:
- joining and supporting the Tourism and Conservation Partnership with collecting boxes;
- introduced in 2007 an opt out scheme
whereby our guests pay a donation of £1 per person staying in
each of the cottages which we pass directly onto the Tourism &
Conservation Partnership every quarter of a year:
- providing The National Park Authority with 150 tons of stone for footpath repairs;
- carrying out various hedge and tree
planting around the farm. (This has included planting 140 native trees
and a mixed hedge with holly, ash, field maple, hawthorn, beech, alder,
rowan and hornbeam), and other tree planting include plum trees (2
varieties, cherries (2 varieties), apples (4 varieties), pears, crab
apples and Westmorland damson trees which will be planted in November;
- introduced a wormery by our composting bins.
- putting up various bird boxes around the farm to encourage nesting of different species;
- commitment to the ESA scheme with DEFRA and
our tenant farmers to adopt a more friendly approach to farming our
land. We have drastically reduced the number of sheep stocked on
our fell land to encourage natural tree regeneration. We practise
environmentally friendly farming and have reduced overgrazing.
One of our farmers who leases the land from us is now going organic in
his practice;
- leaving uncultivated areas around the farm
to encourage wildlife. Most of our dead trees are left to rot. This is
important for ecology including insect life and the wildlife food chain.
- We also use a lot of Ecover products in our
daily cleaning of the hostel and weekly cleaning top up of the cottages
and refill all the washing up bottles with Ecover washing up liquid for
all the cottages.
- Introduced a new style booking form which reduces our use of paper by half.
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