Alpaca farm under threat after council says it isn’t ‘profitable enough’

One of more than 70 alpacas at Alpaca Acres, which rescues neglected and abandoned animals (Picture: Dawn Goulding/Alpaca Acres)

A non-profit Alpaca farm which saves neglected animals has been denied planning consent by a council because it doesn’t make enough money.

Alpaca Acres is under threat of closure after a local authority determined that the organisation doesn’t make enough profit for the owner to live there.

Dawn Goulding moved to the 10-acre estate in Great Tey near Colchester, Essex in 2017 but is now facing the prospect of being evicted ‘any day’ after Colchester City Council have deemed her business to be not making enough money for her to live on the site.

Dawn, 55, suffered a life-changing leg injury in 2020 but continues to manage the farm, which she has since grown into a petting zoo for children to visit and touch the animals.

Last year she was forced to take down the log cabin where she stays, but has since had permission for a mobile caravan on the site rejected by the council.

Dawn has lived on the farm since 2017 but has been told she faces eviction (Picture: Dawn Goulding)

With help from her family, her farm also provides help for people in care homes and women’s refuges and collaborates with several charities including Help for Heroes, running recovery programmes for army soldiers.

This year the farm won the best family attraction at the Muddy Stilettos lifestyle awards.

The farm currently home to more than 100 alpacas, goats and pigs but is also a sanctuary for other abused animals, including donkeys that were beaten and starved.

She told Metro: ‘I don’t earn a penny. I still some weeks struggle from one week to the next because I find it very hard to turn a rescue down. If it means us being on beans and toast or that animal losing its life the animal comes in.

‘We all plod along. We all work so hard. You just never know what life’s going to throw at you from one day to the next.’

Strict rules mean that those looking to live on land which they use for agricultural purpose need to show financial viability.

But Dawn insists she is making ends meet and, despite receiving no external funding, is able to look after her livestock with her farm receiving five star ratings for its animal welfare standards.

Just weeks before it sent Dawn an eviction notice this month, Colchester council showcased the farm on its social media channels as an example of why the local authority had won an RSPCA gold award for its commitment to animals.

The farm is home to more than 100 animals, which provide therapy for children and army veterans (Picture: Dawn Goulding/Alpaca Acres)

In a sign of her dedication to the farm, she continued to work every day even after her injury during Covid, and with her leg in a metal brace.

The accident in 2020 left her unable to drive, bend down or walk long distances.

She said: ‘I had nothing left in my leg really. Every single day even being in that full leg brace I was on two crutches up that paddock or side saddling on a quadbike with a blanket wrapped around me, because those animals gave me purpose, to have to get up every day, because they only had me to rely on.’

‘It’s been life changing. But when you have people like who we have come here, it makes you thing about what you have still got, not what you haven’t got anymore, and it gives other people inspiration not to quit.’

Dawn was given a year to leave her land in October 2025, after which she took down her home and asked for permission to live in a caravan – without which she says she can’t look after the animals which need round-the-clock care perennially, especially given that Alpacas do not have a fixed birthing season.

She now faces a potential Magistrates Court hearing, after the council continues to insist her profit needed to be 20 per cent of her takings in order to grant her permission to live there.

People participating in a yoga class near alpacas at the farm in Essex (Picture: Alpaca Acres/Dawn Goulding)

For Dawn, the farm, which is what is known as a Community Interest Company (CIC) is not about money but supporting the local community.

‘Everything that we earn goes back into the work that we do’, she said.

‘It almost feels a bit like with some of these people who make these decisions, they sit in their little offices, you’re just an application form on their desk. You’re just a number.’

She continued: ‘I could be living off of the state. I’m not. I fought through everything to be up there working. I stopped 100 plus animals from going into welfare places which would have had to happen if I had just given up.’

While Dawn is unable to get permission for a caravan, permission has been granted for 150 homes just up the road from her farm.

Young alpaca Future with a cast on his broken leg (Picture: Alpaca Acres)

Colchester City Council said it had reviewed Dawn’s application but officers had deemed that the business did not all meet all the requirements for a home on site, including ‘financial viability and long-term sustainability’ while acknowledging there was ‘genuine agricultural enterprise’ in the farm.

A spokesperson said: ‘The council recognises that this is a matter of significant personal importance to those involved. However, planning decisions can only be based on material planning considerations and must be taken in accordance with the relevant planning policies and the evidence submitted as part of the application.

‘The council’s role in determining a planning application is separate from its responsibilities in relation to animal welfare licensing.

‘Recognition of standards of animal welfare through schemes such as the PawPrints Awards does not override planning policy requirements or predetermine the outcome of planning applications.

‘Applicants are entitled to submit revised proposals should they wish to do so, and any future application would be considered on its own merits against the relevant planning policies and the evidence provided at that time.’

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