A PORTLAND farm is celebrating a £2,000 grant from Lloyds Bank after being nominated by members of the public.

Fancy’s Farm, based at the end of the Glacis, has received funding from the bank’s community fund to enable it to continue doing good work.

The Lloyds Bank Community Fund was set up to help local people across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man to give grants to 1,400 local good causes.

Sue Illsley, from Fancy’s Farm, said everyone at the farm was taken by surprise but they were delighted with the outcome.

She said: “I don’t know who put us forward. I had three or four emails saying that we had been nominated.

“It’s lovely. Voting was done either in person at Lloyds’ branches in Portland, Weymouth and Dorchester, online, by email and by Twitter.

“A week before the voting ended, we were last in the online voting.”

Sue said the farm already has a number of ideas of how to use the money.

She said: “When we were nominated to enter the community fund, we had to write a profile about what we were going to use the money for.

“We are planning to upgrade the computer room so that people and jobseekers have access to the internet. Our open hours are seven days a week. We have had computers in there for the past two years but they are very old and out of date. We are also going to upgrade the fridge and freezers in the farm shop.”

The farm has many rare and endangered plants and animals including Portland Sheep, which are described as ‘at risk’ on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust watch list.

Sue revealed the farm now has plans to breed a new rare species of goat on the farm.

She said: “I picked up two female Golden Guernsey goats. I’m going to pick up a male within the next couple of weeks. We are looking to add to the breeding programme next year.”

The two new female goats, both six-months old, are named Echo and Elkie. There are between 500 to 1,000 registered breeding females in the UK.