Wednesday, February 26, joi4 ..... „ ^|;.up rnore than 20yearsjn the- B


ETWEEN them, John and Sylvia Welbank havea ■ wealth of experience and' skills: She has clocked


:


^.hospitality industry, and he has>i^ ^ become an expert in advising rural h*. businesses over a similar period^ r^5ivk


^farm.'Sowhen'theyjtookon IrebyiS HfitGreen Farm/in Cowan Bridge, irv' ^ N o v e m b e r ™ 1 0


-


.t^acre^'theb -a^wrihrthemVv T3^% 'lJo buy it wejpeeded a very I'.'f, --friendl/bank manager; one who


^understood whatwe wanted to do. rath'er than just looking ata balance rf^sheet,;' says John, .45: "That took ' r.


' "'sometime."Vf .!o. the.end; it was'the &ct that - , S


y the couple had a lump sum, from "


N-thesale of their family home, and' • iri-depth business plan, that7 '[p-.


ms convinced one bank that they;. % .. ;;were a safe bet. That, and their- - : : - i experience, which, it turned out, - '> meant.they were actually ideally - i?


:: suited for what they wanted to do.; What they wanted to do was this:5': open a farm cafe, which Sylvia, with?,


■ her hospitality experience, would -- ': - - run, and build up the existing ' T under-developed caravan site. Meantime John would continue,, his 'day job' as


. a rural business; adviser.-........ • This explains ; ; why the banks


> were reluctant. . {--"W e 're not r-- farmers,".says * I John.


i ?


Ip-'V-. -"All they saw was the farm and


I V , the agricultural i potential, i J.'W e needed


} someone to think v? ; outside.the box." :i - John and.:. Sylvia also


:


: had to do'some of this type of » , . .thinking themselves, after planners -i complained that there was no


.. sustainable-transport stopping at 77 .-the farm, and that the cafe would


H -Take more income than farming - activities. - -


We had a,battle to get the plans


.; through, , he says. "It took seven months.",


Vr" And yes/there are farming activities. Although Sylvia is not a farmeryherparents are, and


... soJreby'Green Famrris nowalso • - ,'.home to about 50 of their sheep'- - and provides a 'bed and breakfast' 5


. destination for their young dairy - ';


... sto ck-86 Holstein-Friesians. - > - . J t means that John's business - - ~


.,is7shoe-homed between caring - • forthem. There are also some


Breathing new life JOYCE BISHOP^meets a couple who are* doing fHefr bit to'show farming is not moribund, but can be revitalised with soYnala’teral thinking^ with needless bureaucracy,"'


buc^^under a^ntrol^h'd deaf'6"'" ‘ ° Up n vir? n^ entallsts« b'utwe . ‘ . i> . - .-■ aeal — believe theres a way qf running -- ...


But there isthe.added element?


. sh®ep, with their own lamb for sale '• through the cafe.


. It clearly has not been an easy ■ -’* ride for the couple, even though


-“ °h n, ' s rura l practice chartered -M surveyor, with an in-depth - ; 7' *££


knpwledge.of rural planning and * - C funding.


- , "The most stressful part is the ' ’ financial side and the paperwork," ’ says John, acknowledging that ' y =; othere with less experience of the T processes might have given up


; ot the couple.wanting to run the . enterprise in theirown way. We probably don’t make it-


easy for ourselves," admits John * "


;- . I advise on renewable enerqy so " %v®have a biomass heatmg'system rth |t runs on woodchips. It's taken ;


4 !T-® - n?arly three months to battle - . -though to get the subsidy for that:"


rP t 1 l e sPent20yearsd o ing thisT , or other people - so why not do it • for o u r s e l v e s ? ^


4 ? 6'16 a,s° organic, and that's^' .worked well for us because we^>> -


t r ^ n t5 ° .rdt-°buyex>ensive ... 'tractors. We re not out-and- ‘ . \


tA.busiriess by thinking about the ;l :::


Y ? r® 5^ cle,? itr^3 kesfi nan cia I sense. - arfo it makes.marketing sense."-;


''l^.K.al^jmSifesense^to make use;; John's expertise in securing .-.m


A funding*. , ‘ , About .40 per cent of the cost .


lAof building the newA8-cover . ?-:cafe, opened last October, came- i


, .through the Rural Deyelopment , -1 Programme for England. Run by Sylvia, 43,' itaims to


^provide Jocally-sourced organic .. 5 produce, with everything cooked -


" ’ on the premises.- - • a .-r ^he.cafe Is already proving itself, .'jand.-despite tlje untimely winter


opening,-Has attracted a strong- customer base. - , * ' . "It's beenrincredible," says 7 s


Sylvia/ 43, who was once, business ■ development manager,withji;- ( Harrogate:International Centre. ..-. y Trained in hotelandicatering^f«■


"-’*■>


operations,- Sylvia now employs the equivalent of four.full-time staff in.. the cafe;inot bad for an enterprise jS ;; '


. that,'on the.-facefof it/jdid not .A . - ' appear to be ideally located down a farm track' '""The fora (support has been fabulous, ^says^Sylvia, who'-


.manages tosplicefarnily life with-s;.-..7 the,couple^childrehy James; nine, j -/ and sevemyea^old Ellie; intb longj ; . j


•• days in the ca fS ii^ .^ wM is , ‘ .Herbackgroundin'ajarrriin'- - g


.-..Bowland has'given her strong ; . ;


'It's definitely hard work, but it's ours' WITH a mortgage that John


the experience; I wouldn't have ’


-Welbank describes as 'eye­ watering', he and his wife


. Sylvia have had to focus hard of bringing in the money.


: : "For small family farms it's diversify or die," says John.


, "Because you can't make a living out of 100 acres. "About 23 per cent of farms in England earn more from non­


farming income. "The alternative is to go.


seriously into the agricultural side and get bigger. But I don't have


- a clue." v When it comes to the livestock .


they care for, John says he is very much learning on the job, rising at a fairly respectable 6.30am and then spending two or three hours feeding and mucking out the cows. Then he changes hats- for his day job. . "Sylvia is the same," he says. "She's in the cafe at 7.30am; it's a 14-hourdayforhertoo." So far, the commitment and hard work are paying off. The


v ^culinary roots but, ironically,; a-v . ’U*'' - farming’ is.not jn her blood. 'fl didn't . envisage the farming being part of;


, caravan site, after some.basic marketing, is now full and there ■ is a waiting list of 25 people. The couple hope to expand, adding . another 12 pitches. And the cafe is also exceeding expectations. "If you put all the incomes


streams of the business together, plus my day job, we can pay the mortgage and put food on the : table," says John. "It's incredibly hard work, but when you get a nice day you look around and think'This is ours, look what we've done'."*


: - it at all," she says, refemng to the7*" . cows. "But I. do help out." ,


' Ultimately,'the business offers -C?


I ,. . not just a_future fpr the chlldreii;fg!ft: but also a way fordohn and SylyiSS^; to work together, something'they^/


4-i' have been planning forthe p a S P * ■ decade 'John descnbes*it as a ^ ’" ' ‘ dream based in reality; J ~ ^ J


I i ■


^iV'tSylyia's description is’similarlySSK* practical "We're trying really,hardly


vTitpfulfil.a dream; It’s somethirigSve^1. : , wanted to do together andjt fits®'-: • in with' everythina we lovre^brinn^:.’


What they haven't done is rurvais


Wednesday,February26,2014 RURAL LIFE


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62