Bath City Farm received a grant for an air source heat pump to supply heating and hot water to their community farm building. Brendan Wistreich, Director updated us on how this is going…
Bath City Farm mission is to be a welcoming urban farm using our unique setting and targeted projects to educate, improve wellbeing and transform lives. It became known as Bath City Farm in the early 1990’s and gained charitable status in 1995. It is now a popular and well-respected charity stewarding 37 acres of vital green space, and has become an integral part of the community, providing services and opportunities that extend well beyond urban farming.
In addition to a working farm there is a children’s adventure play area, woodland, a cafe, an amphitheatre and community garden plots. Our services include education activities for children and young people, volunteering opportunities and community events throughout the year.
For three or four years the building hosting our training kitchen, office and toilets had no heating and the hot water system was limited. Thanks to grants supplied by Bath and West Community Energy in 2022 and 2023 we installed two air source heat pumps, for our new cafe and main building, it’s made a huge difference to the services we deliver.
Our social impact groups have benefitted greatly, every week volunteers cook meals for 150 people who participate in our programmes. During the year, the Farm has approx. 50,000 visitors and the heat pump is vital for us to supply plenty of hot water for hand washing. As members of the public touch the animals, hand hygiene is vital.
We are also excited that our newest project, ‘Bath Shed’, will also benefit from heat and hot water from the heat pump. This new project will involve practical workshops for people over 50 to make and mend things in a social setting.
We are grateful for BWCE grants as it has had such a big impact on the Farm’s work, and also encouraged other partners to invest in us.
