Warrington Farm Puts Storm Boelo Bill at £50,000

Two sisters who run a farm near Warrington say Storm Boelo has cost them about £50,000.

Ali and Fiona Wilshaw run Bates Farm in Risley, Cheshire. They had expected about 1,000 cars for pumpkin picking on Sunday. Heavy rain and 50mph (80km/h) winds forced them to cancel the event, and they spent the day clearing up instead.

Ali called the impact "pretty unprecedented" and said it had been a sleepless night. "We were up at 05:00 GMT doing a site tour of the destruction," she said. "We've got a marquee and a fair few gazebos from the food vendors, which are absolutely just obliterated."

Hidden costs

Ali described the financial hit as "catastrophic, but not in the way that you would assume - a lot of the cost is very hidden". She listed refunded booking fees, lost pumpkin sales and stock lost by fresh food vendors who could not trade.

Her £50,000 estimate also covers infrastructure spending. That includes repairs to the marquee and a shed, and expensive wood chips needed to make the ground fit for reopening. The farm and its events already operate "at such tight margins", she added.

Aiming for Monday

The sisters are trying to repair enough of the damage to open on Monday. "We're in a race against time to get open again," Fiona said. Once the farm can open, it does not have to refund people's tickets for the day, and "we can get the farm moving and making money again".

The sisters have run Bates Farm since their father, Michael, died in October 2023. He had run it for 30 years and died of cancer. Speaking to the BBC in 2024, shortly after taking over, Fiona said they had a lot to get their heads round, and that their father helped them as much as he could even when he was poorly.

Source: BBC News