THE man behind one of Britain’s most respected restaurants is to further his commitment to farming in the Lake District.

Simon Rogan, who runs the Michelin star eaterie, L’Enclume in Cartmel, is setting up a new and bigger farm in the Cartmel Valley.

The site will allow Mr Rogan to keep livestock, grow his own vegetables and produce his own milk and eggs. There will also be an orchard of rare English fruits.

“We are really excited about it,” he said. “There is so much more scope and space for what we hope to do.

“We had gone as far as we could go with our current farm, which we rented from the owners and then re-employed one of the owners to work there.

“With the new farm, there is a bigger area for livestock. We are hoping to get some pigs and some sheep on there soon.

“We are going to grow all of our own vegetables here as we have done in the past and will be self-sufficient in that way.

“The dairy cows are on the property now and we are going to build a new chicken coup, so we can have our own milk and eggs - in a restaurant like ours we need a lot of milk and eggs.”

Mr Rogan said the new farm would allow the restaurant to have total control over what happens there and to grow ever-increasing types of prime ingredients.

“We have a free rein to do what we want. There will be a full team on the new site and we have got a full-time gardener. It will be a frantic autumn setting everything up before the winter sets in, and we can’t wait to get started.”

L'Enclume, which recently gained a point for a 9/10 rating in the forthcoming 2012 Good Food Guide and rose to second in its list of the best restaurants in the UK, prides itself on promoting local produce.

Its mission statement includes the following sentiment: “Our area is everything and our aim is to present you with the most amazing local ingredients.”

And Mr Rogan revealed he was not resting on his laurels when it came to making the most of Cumbria’s rich agricultural land.

“This is not the end of our acquisition of farmland. We are looking at another property at the moment and are pulling out all the stops to get it.”