Our Environment
Let's face it. Aviation doesn't have a great reputation in environmental matters. As custodians of 50 acres of the East Devon National Landscape (formally the AONB), we are passionate about improving our environment, protecting the EDNL and ensuring that the few movements of aircraft that we have is actually beneficial. Believe it or not - it truly IS beneficial - and the experts agree!
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Our use of the land as a small, grass airfield directly supports expansive areas of natural grassland, woods and over 3km of hedgerow. These support rare orchids, grasses, numerous plants, insects, bees, butterflies, bugs, a wide variety of birds, small mammals , deer and deer. We have numerous birds of prey residing on the site from buzzards to owls. Bats live in our woods. No pesticides or fertilisers are used and maintenance advice is sought from local experts. Without being able to use the fields for flying, we would have no choice but to graze the land, cultivate it or seek other development. Small grass roots airfield provide a unique opportunity to bolster and support such areas - very few exist.
Operation Hedgerow
Part of enhancing the EDNL and enhancing biodiversity is to improve hedgerow. When we bought Farway, there was a total of 1.82km around the property. Much was in a poor state. Since then, with the help of the Sid Vale Bio-Diversity Group and Sidmouth Arboretum (Who's amazing volunteers planted most of them!), we now have 3km of hedgerow. Future plans increase this to 3.75km. This not only helps absorb noise from aircraft, screens the road from distractions but also provides excellent habitats.
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In total over 3500 whips have gone into the ground. Supplied by the Woodland Trust - who funded 50% of the cost. The rest came from landing fees charged.
Grassland Maintenance (Or lack of it!)
|The airfield's part of the site is approximately 30 acres. Of this, most is laid to wildflower meadow. These areas total over 95'000 square metres. This area is left completely to nature - except for a single harvest in the autumn (which is exactly why the meadows are in such great shape). No pesticides, herbicides or any other interventions are used. Since stopping grazing of the land, the meadows have exploded in colour - with tens of thousands of rare orchids, yellow rattle, rare & ancient grasses and other flowers. The land has not been farmed (except for grazing) for over 30 years. This supports an extensive population of pollinators and insects which in turn keep the birds happy - wrens, song thrushes, various finches and tits and skylarks.
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The only mown areas (outside of the 95'000 square meters, are the two 550m runways which, the birds of prey prefer for catching small mammals.
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This image was taken at Farway in May 2025
Operation Robomow
Our mown areas total approximately 14'000 sq meters. This takes a long time to cut with with our venerable 1970's tractor. We've now installed 2x Husqvarna 450x Robot mowers to do the work. Before, the grass needed cutting weekly for 8 months of the year - taking about 2 hours each time (and once a month in the winter). With the tractor burning approx 10 litres of diesel per hour, this saves us burning approx 720 litres (158 gallons) a year and reduces our carbon footprint by 2052kg annually. We are investigating investment in a larger mower system to also look after our runways to reduce our diesel usage to almost nil.
Offgrid Energy
We are underway with taking ALL airfield and other operations completely off-grid and running everything from renewable energy. With addition of solar panels, batteries and inverter system all power will come from the sun.
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Using the experience of our Director, James (who has 30 years of experience in engineering power systems), the system is far more sustainable than most. Most are based around lithium-ion battery systems (which are far from recyclable or green), Farway's is based on 99.8% recyclable pure lead thick plate technology.
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The whole system will also power Electric Vehicle charging points and provide power for new generation electric aircraft.
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The whole airfield will be officially off-grid with its own sustainable water, waste and power supplies. This reduces our carbon footprint significantly.
Wildwood
We recently purchased 3 acres of woodland that adjoin the airfield. Overgrown and full of invasive species, we have carefully cleared areas to improve habitat. Many dangerously rotten trees, an old caravan and a huge amount of old agricultural junk has been removed. This is an ongoing project! What we have noticed is that our small herd of deer now have set up home there and is home to numerous owls.