In the late 1990’s, parents of young adults with learning disabilities realised the difficulty presented by the absence of facilities and decided to form their own charity to provide a working occupation for their children and others like them. In 2000 a Charitable Limited Company was formed and went on to become a registered charity in the same year. It took six years of dedicated fundraising to start the project but on 27th May 2006 the Cafe was officially opened.

A year later the charity opened a small Animal Park, which had chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits and goats along with a miniature Shetland pony. The charity increased the number of animals and introduced children’s play areas , and soon welcomed over 700 visitors a week.

In 2017, The Hope Nature Centre approached Fairfield Trust, a charity with similar objectives in working to support young people with learning disabilities, to formally merge to form a single charity. The merger took place on 1st October 2018 and operates under Fairfield Trust and continues to provide training opportunities for young adults with learning difficulties. Incorporating both Fairfield College and Hope Nature Centre, the Fairfield Trust is registered under charity number 273924. In early 2023, Hope Nature Centre changed it’s name to Fairfield Animal Centre to better reflect the way in which it had become part of the Fairfield Trust.

Under Fairfield the animal centre has continued to grow and thrive with over a hundred animals, many of whom have been rescued, a full calendar of seasonal, special events and employing and training dozens of people with with disabilities every year