Ecological Land Cooperative Site 3 - Furzehill, Swansea

Furzehill, Ilston, The Gower, Swansea, SA2 7LQ Location The ELC’s third site is a group of four fields making up 17.85 acres situated on the Gower Peninsular in Wales in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty near to the villages of Ilston and Lunnon, and close to the beach at Three Cliffs Bay. The seaside resort of The Mumbles and the city of Swansea are a 20 minute drive away.

Date purchased December 2017

Stage of development The ELC became aware of this parcel of land through our partner, Cae Tan, a community supported agriculture (CSA) project already established locally. They needed more land to grow food for their vegetable box scheme and had identified the fields at Furzehill.

Cae Tan are now growing on 5 acres and they have achieved planning permission under permitted development for a polytunnel and a small barn which have been erected on their plot. The ELC has begun the process of engaging with the local community and are working in partnership with Cae Tan to develop plans for a farm start project on the development land along with permission for two agriculturally tied dwellings for smallholders.

Plot sizes There will be two smallholdings comprising approximately 5.5 acres each with permission to site a dwelling in the development area. The final acreages will be confirmed when the plots are ready to be purchased.

Anticipated completion date As always this will be affected by the process of applying for planning permission - we would like to have everything ready by the Summer of 2020.

What do the plots cost? At this point in time we do not have the plot prices , although we will be endeavouring to keep them in line with the price of plots on all our sites, so that we recover our costs of land purchase and development only. Ecological Information Site Layout (approximate) Historically all four fields on the site have been under pasture with some reseeding over the last ten years, with sheep grazing most recently. The field boundaries have been consistent since 1900. Each Plot 1 field is bounded by hedgerow of varying levels of Development diversity. land

A baseline ecological survey has been carried out by researchers at Swansea University with recommendations for improvements to habitat for flora and fauna. There are several SSSI sites locally although none that cover the ELC fields. Cae Tan Plot 2 Soil Soils are predominately sandy clay loam to a depth of 250-350 mm. The subsoil is moderately stony and well drained. The soil is free draining in Summer, and showing little or no seasonal waterlogging. It is generally reasonably well structured with medium levels of organic matter. The soil will hold moisture quite well in all but prolonged dry/hot periods. Ecological Land Cooperative Unit 204, The Brighton Eco-Centre, Brighton, BN1 3PB tel: 01273 766 672 email: [email protected] web: www.ecologicalland.coop