The Holliday family, the tenant farmers at Westridge Farm in Ryde, have shared a heartfelt message with supporters, announcing that they ‘have no fight left’ and have come to agreement with their landlord to, subject to planning permission being granted, vacate the farm later in the year.
The contentious West Acre planning application for 472 homes on the last dairy farm in Ryde is once again being discussed at today’s Planning Committee.
The message from the Hollidays explains that “we as a family are broken and we have simply had enough”. They thank their supporters, but say they cannot go on any longer.
The message on their social media account reads:
For the last six years our family has faced an uphill fight to try and save our home, farm and livelihood at Westridge Farm.The planning meeting on 27th July 2021 was hard to bear watching on as our future life at Westridge Farm was debated.
The way in which planning was granted felt like such a forced and bullied approach by certain council officers and councillors, which is something we have failed to come to terms with as we felt the decision was not fairly decided.
The days, weeks and months following this planning decision have been the hardest times of our lives. Trying to process and understand what happened. We have lived our lives for so long with such uncertainty, not knowing the next move of the landlord, developer and council and when we would be served notice to leave, yet continuing to farm every single day!
It has got to the point where we can not go on any longer. We have no fight left.
Therefore it’s with a heavy heart we have reached an agreement with our landlord to gain vacant possession of Westridge Farm.
Subject to planning being granted, farming will cease at Westridge Farm by 31st October 2022.
We are so thankful for the community support as without you all we certainly wouldn’t have made it this far.
We are truly sorry that we can not go on fighting, but we can only take so much. We know the community may well continue this fight without us.
But we as a family are broken and we have simply had enough. For the sake of our own mental well-being, after over 55 years farming this land, the time has come for us to step away and find our future happiness away from Westridge Farm.
