A campaign group has warned that Lincolnshire risks becoming a ‘hotspot’ for large-scale poultry farms.
Sustain: the Alliance for Better Food and Farming fears Holbeach Poultry Ltd’s plans in Whaplode Drove could pose health risks and animal welfare concerns, writes Local Democracy Reporter, Oliver Castle.
The group wants South Holland District Council to refuse the application – which it says is missing a key document – along with calling on the Government to support farmers to produce more vegetables and pulses.
The council said it’s in the process of considering the application and that no decision has been made yet.
Campaigners say that residents haven’t been properly consulted about the human health, environmental and animal welfare risks of the proposal.
Ruth Westcott, campaign manager at Sustain, said: “As an organisation, we’ve worked on a number of large livestock applications and our feelings on this are that we need to be supporting a different kind of food system and for farmers to farm differently.
“We’re seeing more and more of these applications for intensive livestock popping up across the country. We’re finding that Lincolnshire is becoming a new hotspot for these applications.
“This application is missing an impact assessment with some of the most important information which the council and the community would need to know.
“We’re really concerned that they’re trying to keep the information required to the absolute minimum.
“We think they’re trying to push this through without the proper consent from people. Local people should know as much as possible about the impact of this unit.”
Ms Westcott told Democracy Reporting Service that the Government should be supporting farmers to engage in more environmentally friendly farming practices.
She said: “In the UK, we are already producing more meat and dairy than the country needs. What we really need is for more vegetables and pulses to be produced in the UK.
“There’s many more sustainable things which could be done at this farm. There’s no justification for producing more meat and dairy. We’re importing so much and it’s leaving us with a production gap.
“We need proper support to produce the food that we need for our import gaps. This would help us avoid these gaps and address climate change.
“The kind of farming we need looks very different to this one. The farmers that we’ve spoken to produce intensively and they just feel let down by the government and feel they have no other option.”
Ms Westcott went on to say that the proposed poultry unit could leave the animals being kept in confined spaces.
She said: “We’re concerned that this is a directional shift in keeping more and more animals in more intensive systems, rather than supporting farmers to produce organic produce.
“There is more and more evidence that keeping animals in these kinds of systems inevitably leads to cruelty.
“They are raised for an absolute profit. They squeeze the producer for profit which means they have to cut corners.
“Because you are keeping so many animals in a small space, they emit harmful chemicals, particularly ammonia, which they pump straight through chimneys into the air.
“That means that they either deposit the chemicals in local environments or they can travel long distances and pollute the air for quite a long distance. Ammonia pollution is toxic.
“When you have lots of these farms in one area, it can create health problems for people.
“We’re worried that those air quality and health impacts are not properly set out. People don’t know about what impacts adding another of these units could have on their health.”
Kev Bunn, co-ordinator of the group said: “Lincolnshire is already the home to more intensive poultry farms than any other area.
“Residents living close to the existing nearby poultry farms tell us that the noise, odour and dust created during the cleaning phase is unbearable for days at time, rendering their outdoor space unusable and having to keep windows and doors closed at times during ever increasingly hot summers.
“A sustainable food system that supports health and wellbeing will never be achieved while we increasingly support intensive animal farming.
“We have to change course, for our health, for our environment and of course, for the animals who bear the brunt of needless suffering.”
The agricultural charity Foodrise has also written to South Holland District Council, urging it to refuse the application because of the environmental and health risks.
Natasha Hurley, deputy director at Foodrise said: “These facilities are nothing more than intensive factory farms slaughtering millions of animals a year, causing enormous climate and environmental harm in the process.
“Approving intensive factory farms like this is madness. We urge South Holland District Council to reject this planning application.”
A spokesperson for South Holland District Council said: “We are unable to comment on the details of a live, undetermined planning application, so as not to prejudice or influence the formal determination.
“All applications received are determined in strict accordance with the local and national planning policies every Local Planning Authority must adhere to.
“All developments, including matters of environmental impact, are fully assessed against these policies before a decision is reached.”
