Brackenburn has been awarded a grant of £12,040 by the Mendip Hills AONB Sustainable Development Fund, with matched funding from the Directors, to establish a project to determine the feasibility and viability of a local biomass fuel business based close to the Mendip Hills AONB area.
Approximately 50 tons in total of bracken has been harvested during October 2008. This is now in storage locally to the business.
One of the Directors of Brackenburn has been harvesting bracken from the Mendips for the past 5 years for composting and so has considerable experience in this aspect of the process.
Expert advice was provided to the Directors by the Mendip Hills AONB Service and also by a leading scientist in the field at the Forestry Commission's research organisation Surrey.
The feasibility project is comprehensive and will explore all aspects of production from harvesting, drying, grinding and pelleting to storage, bagging and distribution.
The project will provide details on:
The Directors anticipate being able to report on all the above in early summer 2009.
We shall be providing information on our progress via this website (please see 'News' on the Homepage).
If you would like to know more or register your interest as a prospective user of bracken-based biomass fuels, then do please contact us with your email and/or other contact details on enquiry@brackenburn.co.uk stating your particular interest if appropriate.
If you have a biomass boiler that could possibly take bracken pellets, cobs or briquettes, then do let us know so that we can help you in your future fuel planning.
We shall then keep you personally informed via a newsletter as we progress.
If you represent a school, LEA or youth organisation and would like to consider opportunities for outreach activities later in terms of awareness of local sustainability and low carbon initiatives, then please get in touch with us so that we may work with you to prepare future outreach programmes.
Managing bracken is important to increasing biodiversity in these areas leading to new flora and forna. We are hoping that local schools, youth groups and individuals can help us to monitor these benefits to our environment.
Later, we intend to provide an online registration facility. We also intend to provide an online ordering process once we enter production later this year.
Richard has been a hotelier, fish farmer and restauranteur in Pembrokshire and Bristol. He and his family have lived in Blagdon for over 20 years.
Ian has been farming with his family in the Yeo Valley close to Butcombe for over 20 years and has lived in the area all his life. He has been harvesting bracken from the Mendip Hills for the past 5 years for use as organic compost.
John first moved to Blagdon as a teenager over 40 years ago and now lives with his family in Burrington. He has had a technical and marketing career that has taken him to 3 continents to work.