Wrights Farm in Pirton is a fantastic local asset, but at the moment it’s doing a pretty convincing impression of somewhere everyone has forgotten about.

Parts of the site have become badly overgrown, buildings and stables are sitting unused and in need of attention, and the chalk stream running through the land has become overgrown too. It seems such a waste to have something with this much potential sitting on our doorstep and not being properly used or cared for.

The thing that started all of this for me was simply walking the dogs past the farm and thinking, surely we can do something better with this?

I live locally on Shillington Road and run a local landscaping, garden maintenance and tree surgery business. We’re a small but growing company and Wrights Farm could give us the space we need to grow, employ more local people and build something that could genuinely benefit the village at the same time.

My idea isn’t to flatten everything and completely change the place. Quite the opposite — I want Wrights Farm to stay Wrights Farm.

A really important part of our proposal would be the opportunity to purchase the farmhouse/residential part of Wrights Farm and make it our family home. This isn’t separate from the wider idea — it’s actually a big part of making it work.

By living on site, we’d be there every day. If there was an issue with the land, buildings, animals, stream, access or anything affecting neighbouring residents, we could deal with it straight away rather than the farm being an unattended council asset.

It would mean Wrights Farm had someone genuinely looking after it again — not popping in every now and then, but actually living there, caring about what happens to it and being accountable to the people living around us.

For the remainder of the farm, I’d like to explore a sensible arrangement with Hertfordshire County Council that allows our landscaping, maintenance and tree surgery business to operate from the existing site. We’d improve and maintain the buildings, bring the unused stables back into use, properly manage the grounds and get the farm productive again.

That would give a growing local company somewhere to establish itself properly, allowing us to expand and hopefully create more jobs for local people.

There’s also a big environmental opportunity.

I’d love to sympathetically restore and manage the chalk stream, improve habitats, encourage wildlife back and generally look after an area that’s been neglected for too long. Given what we actually do for a living, maintaining land, trees and green spaces isn’t exactly unfamiliar territory!

I’d also want to protect the things people already enjoy about the area, including the bridleways and access for walkers and dog walkers.

And I don’t want this to just be my vision for Wrights Farm.

I’ve already asked people in Pirton what they’d like to see there alongside our business. There could be community projects, environmental schemes, local produce, improvements for walkers and dog walkers, bringing the stables back into use or something none of us have thought of yet.

I’m not pretending I’ve got every answer — although Pirton Disneyland is probably stretching the budget slightly.

What concerns me is watching Wrights Farm continue to deteriorate or eventually seeing development fundamentally change the character of the site when there could be another option.

This petition isn’t asking Hertfordshire County Council to simply hand me the keys and hope for the best.

It’s asking them to sit down with us, listen to the people of Pirton and seriously explore whether the residential part could be purchased by us and a sensible arrangement reached for the wider farm.

One that gives Wrights Farm people who actually live there and care for it, supports a growing local business, creates local jobs, improves the environment, respects neighbouring residents and keeps the character of the farm.

I’ve already been amazed by the amount of support and ideas from people locally.

Give the community a voice. Give a local business an opportunity. And let’s get Wrights Farm looked after and working for Pirton again.

If you agree that this option deserves to be properly explored, please sign and share the petition.

The more local people who get behind it, the stronger our voice becomes.