A FAMILY farming business devastated by the foot and mouth disaster has finally risen from the ashes.

It is now almost four years since the Staley family of Kington near Thornbury were forced to stand by helplessly as soldiers shot their herd of 4,600 pigs during the heartbreaking cull of winter 2001.

Farmer Roger Staley, a pig farmer since he was lad, was grief stricken and his two sons, David and Jonathan, were faced with agonising decisions over their future.

Now the pig farming business has matamorphosed in a way that the Staley's forebears would never have thought of.

The old pig sheds are no more and in their place stand pristine self storage units ready to help solve the storage problems of families and firms all over the district.

"We're fifth generation farmers and after foot and mouth we were forced to look at our long term future," said Jonathan Staley, co-director Thornbury Self Storage in Kington Road, Thornbury.

"With all the regulations and the increasing costs none of us could see much of a future in pigs. We hit on self storage which is a growing sector in this country and went ahead thanks to help from a Rural Enterprise Scheme operated by DEFRA (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

"The old pig sheds were razed to the ground and we've created 20,000 square feet of fully waterproofed units. They go from wardrobe sized right up to drive-up units the size of large double garage

"It'a fantastic site with very high standards of security including a full alarm, system and digital CCTV."

Co-director David Staley, said: "It's taken quite a long time to get this far. Diversification on this scale was a major challenge and obviously there were times when we were apprehensive.

But we're now sure we made the right choice. People are increasingly short of space these days and the units are in demand by businesses and individuals for storing items that aren't needed on a daily basis."

The brothers have not sliced through all their farming roots and are still cereal growers.

However, they have also devoted half their land to traditionally managed pasture as part of a wildlife and countyrside scheme aimed at encouraging lapwings to nest on their fields.

Said Jonathan: "We've long had concerns about about putting chemicals on the land and we were very happy when the chance came along to try something different."

Thornbury Self Storage can be contacted on 01454 413343 or through their website at www.thornburyselfstorage.co.uk