About Tapnell Farm

Our green credentials

Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. Our constant and enduring ethos (echoed by most in the farming community) is that each generation passes onto the next, the farm, land, property and business in better health than when they started.

Our green credentials

Here are some of the ways in which we have taken decisive action on green environmental practices and social and ethical choices:

Power

• Installed 500kw of renewable solar generation across four buildings and two small field arrays, meaning the farm is electric positive and sends excess green power back to the grid. Tapnell generates more than 500,000kwh of energy a year, enough to power more than 100 homes.
• Removed oil boilers and replaced them with a district heating network powered by sustainably sourced renewable wood pellets.
• Installed air source and ground source heat pumps in new properties and business premises.
• Early adopter and promoter of LED low-energy lighting, converting all properties in 2012 and saving thousands of kilowatts of energy and tons of unnecessary carbon emissions.
• Grow tons of energy crops annually to produce renewable gas.

Recycling

• Early adopter of compostable and biodegradable packaging to replace plastic products.
• Recycle all farm plastics and scrapping old metals.
• Repurposed former farm buildings to regenerate rather than build on greenfield land.
• Upcycle products wherever possible to avoid unnecessary purchasing.
• Recycle used wetsuits.

People

• Generated full-time and seasonal employment for more than 100 local people, offering high-quality jobs with real career opportunities.
• Champions local business, with ethos of 'Island first', with most products and services sourced on the Isle of Wight.

Conservation

• Lodges constructed with natural materials, powered by low-energy sources, supported by a market-leading sewage treatment system that meets the highest environmental standards, and supplied with a recycling station.
• Rehomed animals from a closed wildlife park to create the farm park, with hundreds of animals rehomed and cared for ever since.
• Upgraded, maintained and promoted miles of footpaths and bridleways in the surrounding countryside.
• Created two new lakes to better manage the water course and provide habitats for wildlife.
• Planted miles of hedgerows and thousands of plants, shrubs and trees across the farm.
• Took acres of land out of arable production and pioneered large field margins for greater biodiversity of flora and fauna.
• Installed owl, squirrel, tit and bat boxes.
• Created a special conservation garden in close co-operation with the Isle of Wight and Hampshire Wildlife Trust to create an educational and interactive wildlife garden for visitors to enjoy.
• Adopted new soil testing to allow targeted applications of product where necessary, also saving on input and reducing carbon emissions.
• Red Tractor-certified and conducting countryside stewardship schemes.
• Aim to promote and support local charities and organisations already actively involved in local conservation projects.

Sitting on the site of the 1970 Isle of Wight pop festival, our farm is surrounded by a patchwork of fields that form the pasture and meadows of the countryside, which gently undulate with Tapnell Down to the south and Hamstead Heritage Coast and coastal woodlands to the north.

The picturesque chalk down grassland and forests to the south are not only part of the protected landscape but are also Sites of Special Scientific Interest and described by Natural England as being “probably the best example in Britain of chalk grassland under maritime influence.