Growing at Field28 - a family run farm shop and café in Daresbury

Growing at Field28 is located on Chester Road in Daresbury.

Currently, major maintenance works are ongoing on this road and they are expected to last for approximately 12 months.

It means that traffic travelling along the A56 is in contraflow, reduced from two lanes in each direction.

Husband and wife Jan and Kevin Dobbs, owners of Growing at Field28, say that since the roadworks began, they have been seeing ‘fewer and fewer’ people visiting the farm shop, café and bakery.

Co-owner Jan (Image: Supplied)

They believe this is mainly due to people still getting used to the traffic cones and people avoiding the road in general.

But the farm shop remains open, and it is still accessible during this period.

Growing at Field28 was founded in 2017 by Jan and Kevin who are from Moore.

They owned the field on Chester Road, which was empty, and wanted to do something nice with it.

When Growing at Field28 was first founded, Jan and Kevin started growing microgreen leaves, which are used as garnish, for chefs to use in restaurants.

(Image: Supplied)

They then started to grow other produce to sell to chefs. But when Covid hit, restaurants were forced to close and the business no longer had an outlet for all of the vegetables that were in the ground.

“There was six acres of land, and all that veg would have gone to waste,” Jan said.

So Growing at Field28 started to sell vegetable boxes to the local community.

This then developed into people wanting to buy the produce, so Jan and Kevin started to sell the produce once a week from the farm's gates.

When lockdown ended, this led to the couple launching a farm shop. And now, a bakery, which sells fresh bread, pastries and sweet treats, and a café can also be found at the site. Growing at Field28 still supplies local businesses and restaurants.

Owners Kevin and Jan (Image: Supplied)

And if the business has excess produce at any point, its chefs cook with it. For example, if there is excess cauliflower, they will make cauliflower cheese for people to buy.

Flowers and dried flowers which are grown in the fields are also sold at the farm shop.

Talking to the Warrington Guardian about the roadworks, Jan said: “When the traffic cones first went up, nobody was coming to the shop.

“It is very hard for people to work their way around the cones.

“We have been seeing fewer and fewer people coming in.

(Image: Supplied)

“It is starting to get a little better though, I have put things on social media to raise awareness that we are still open and looking after people.

“And there are lots of lovely customers still coming to support us.

“People are starting to get used to the cones but it is probably about half the amount of visitors that are coming in because they just don’t want to go through the traffic.”

Jan says that Halton Borough Council, who are overseeing the roadworks, and the developers have been ‘really good’ and have listened to the business’ concerns.

Co-owner Kevin (Image: Supplied)

“The work has got to be done, it is just about making sure people know we are still there,” Jan added.

“The council is really working hard with us to find solutions and we are really grateful for that.

“We are also really grateful for the support that our customers are giving.

“It is just nice to raise awareness that we are still there, and we are still looking after people.”