Shropshire farm’s operators ‘amazed it is still here after 20 years’

In 2026 it will be two decades since an organic farm was saved from development by a brother and sister who set up a community ownership scheme.

“We are amazed that Fordhall is still here, how much it has improved, and where it can go next is so exciting,” said Charlotte Hollins, who along with brother Ben Hollins set up the scheme giving ownership to more than 8,000 community shareholders.

“It was such a battle at the time, such a struggle, we were so young,” Ms Hollins said, “me and Ben were only in our very early 20s when Fordhall eventually went into community ownership, we’d spent most of our lives fighting to be there as a family.”

Ms Hollins, 43, is now general manager of Fordhall Community Land Initiative (FCLI), the charitable society that owns the farm near Market Drayton.

Mr Hollins, 41, is tenant farmer of the site, which is known as England’s first community-owned farm.

They had been exhausted, she said, having set up a vision with the local community for the farm’s future, but with “a very run down farm, buildings were crumbling and falling down, it was derelict for many years because so little money had been able to be reinvested back in the farm.”

Community ownership brought hope back, she said, showing that if enough people came together and put a small action in for a collective vision, amazing things could happen.

When it did happen in 2006, after they raised £800,000 to save the farm, she said it was quite daunting.

“Ben and I were like, oh my gosh, now we’ve got to actually make this work, and do all the stuff we’ve been talking about.”

Community ownership made the challenge enjoyable, said Ms Hollins, as the shareholders brought not just financial help, but ideas, encouragement and “wonderful positive energy.”

FCLI now has a staff of more than 30, the farm hosts school visits and youth groups, has an on-site cafe, and the land is open free to the public six days a week.

If the scheme had not been successful in 2006, the land would have been concreted over, Ms Hollins believes.

At the time, nobody really understood what community ownership was, but it worked because people had hope, she said.

The farm owns 128 acres, and is still selling shares to try and protect another 12 acres from potential development, she stated.

For the future, they are looking at expanding what they have done in Shropshire to support community ownership plans in other parts of the country.

A farm in Devon is set to be donated to them in 2027 by a shareholder, who wants to safeguard his land, but is retiring without a family member to pass it on to.

But keeping Fordhall strong remained the key focus, she said, with plans for a big party on 4 July to mark 20 years since the farm was saved.

In October, a play written about her father Arthur Hollins’ life and learning about organic farming, called Arthur’s Plough, is also being revived, to reflect two decades since community ownership.

One of the first newsletters they sent out in 2006 had a little bit of blurb saying “you never know, one day, we might be helping other farms into community ownership, or maybe there will be other farms under the Fordhall umbrella, let’s just see what happens,” Ms Hollins recalled.

“And here we are, and those opportunities have presented themselves,” she said, describing her pride in the fact that since Fordhall 20 years ago, at least a dozen other community farms now exist across the country.