College's new sheep centre gives boost to hill farming

Students Imogen Bell, 16, of Haydon Bridge; Laura Elliott, 17, of Ellonby; Ebony Telford, 17, of Roadhead and Ollie Raine, 17, of Kirkoswald Credit: Newton Rigg College

A new sheep husbandry centre worth £430,000 is officially being opened at a college in Cumbria today.

The investment at Newton Rigg College is being heralded as a vote of confidence in one of the UK's most challenging farming sectors.

The Penrith college will now have the most modern facilities to equip the next generation of agriculturalists with the expertise and knowledge needed to help safeguard the future of hill farming.

The showcase centre is based at Low Beckside Farm, Mungrisdale which is within some of the country's most difficult uplands.

The centre is multi-functional and versatile with removable animal penning areas which can be transformed from a lambing centre, to a vast storage space to a livestock handling area.

The latest technology has been included for example hand held scanners to record data from each animal – from weight to animal health to ear tag numbers, all of which can be analysed and used to inform the college's future stocking regime.

It was constructed by Robinson's Scotland of Lockerbie and has been supported by the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership as well as regional organisations such as the Cumbria Farmer Network, the Lake District National Park, the NFU (National Farmers Union) and YFC. (Young Farmers Clubs).

Watch our report with Tim Backshall below:

Newton Rigg was taken over by Askham Bryan College in 2011 and since then has seen a huge increase in the number of students studying agriculture, from less than 20 six years ago, to today's figure of 300.