The Beavering Beast… The Ultimate Electric Farm Utility Vehicle!
Spains Hall Estate in Braintree, Essex has been repurposing its land towards a more environmentally sustainable future… All that was missing was a sustainable work vehicle to travel the 2000 acre site. Enter The Beast, the ultimate electric farm utility vehicle!
Spains Hall Estate describes itself as ‘the perfect place to enjoy the countryside’. A working farming estate, owned and run by the Ruggles-Brise family since 1760, it claims to ‘care deeply about our environment, woodlands and the wildlife we provide a home for’.
The 2000 acre estate comprises a mixture of ancient woodland, grassland, tenanted farms, and a ground-breaking beaver and natural flood management project. With such strong beliefs in preservation and the environment, when it was time to renew its key utility vehicles, the move to electric power was certainly part of the team’s thinking.
The Mission to Find an Electric Farm Utility Vehicle
Finding an electric farm utility vehicle with the capacity to handle a range of job roles, was potentially not an easy task. One minute the vehicle would be transporting visitors to the beaver project, and the next hauling logs, they needed to be sure that an electrically-powered UTV was up to the job.
Rent First, Buy Later…
To find out, the estate approached Electric Wheels with a view to renting a vehicle for a while to evaluate its suitability. Given that what was initially being replaced was a big-engined diesel UTV, being sure that an electric vehicle could adequately replace its pulling power was vital before taking the plunge and purchasing an electric farm utility vehicle.
“Chris at Electric Wheels was brilliant, and really flexible in making sure we got the right vehicle,” says Archie Ruggles-Brise. “We started off by renting a smaller UTV for a month, but it became clear that we needed something more robust. So Chris swapped it out for ‘The Beast’, the largest and most powerful vehicle they do. It was very quickly clear that this was the vehicle for us, with its extra capacity and extra power. It could do all that our diesel machine could do, and more.”
Applying for a LoCase Grant
Having ascertained that The Beast was the perfect electric vehicle, the Estate successfully applied for a grant from Low Carbon South East (LoCase), a partnership programme which runs across the southeast of England supported by the European Regional development Fund, which helps businesses achieve the dual aim of increased competitiveness and profitability, and protecting the environment and encouraging low carbon solutions. Learn more about the grant.
The grant enabled Spains Hall to buy a fully road-legal four-seater ‘Beast’, complete with bespoke increased load space – essential because as Archie says, “here, everything has to do more than one job.”
“Our main concern was that the vehicle would be able to do everything we needed it to, from hauling around big loads, through the ability to go anywhere we wanted it to, to transporting visitors such as funders, partners and other VIPs,” says Archie.
“It’s ideal. We have the ability to carry these extra people wherever we need to take them, while also being able to have a conversation without shouting. It’s very comfortable, and it’s a vehicle which in itself reflects our own beliefs about sustainability.
“We are absolutely, totally convinced about The Beast. Our ambition is to move towards electric power across our whole fleet, and this has been the first step, it’s proof of concept that it works for us.”
Archie has some advice for anyone thinking about making the change to electric utility vehicles. “Rent one for a week or a month. You can really put it through its paces, and thoroughly test-drive it. It was important to convince not just me, but the staff members who would be using it – and that rental period allowed us to do that.”
We’ve loved and appreciated hearing from Archie about how the Spains Hall team has been using and enjoying driving The Beast at the Braintree Estate. To find out more about The Beast, please get in touch. Call us on 0333 3582175 or email us at enquiries@electric-wheels.co.uk.
