Call for pause on all local chicken farm applications

Local residents groups and other organisations in and around Newtown and Llanidloes have signed a letter demanding Powys County Council pause all chicken farm applications in the county.

An open letter has been sent to Powys County Council’s leader and chief executive.

In total 10 protest  groups from throughout Powys have come together to put their concerns to Councillor Rosemarie Harris and Dr Caroline Turner.

Powys is seen as the “poultry capital” of Wales and people believe that the balance to approve intensive poultry units (IPU) has been skewed too far in favour of applicants.

The groups said: “We are increasingly concerned that PCC appears to be
effectively rubber-stamping approval of a flood of these applications without apparent consideration of the overall impact on the county.

“There have been 130 completed applications for IPUs in Powys since June 2015 – and virtually all of them have been approved.

“There are 29 more in the pipeline.

“Our concern is that no-one is properly and thoroughly considering the wide
cumulative impact on our environment and on the health of all those adults and children – our families and friends – who live in Powys.”

They are asking for:

A moratorium on all current and future IPU and
other intensive factory farm applications until PCC are able to accurately take stock of the current situation.
A comprehensive environmental survey to find out if
current air and water quality in parts of Powys with a concentration of
IPUs are near, or already beyond, saturation point.
A proper assessment of the human health considerations to residents posed by the already large number of factory farms present in Powys  – based
on actual studies rather than desk-based predictions.
Details of how PCC takes into account the provisions of
the’ Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015′ when
determining applications.
Stop deciding all IPU applications until the new Intensive
farming TAN (Government Technical Advice Note) is in place to properly guide planning officers in their decision-making process.
A spokesman for PCC confirmed that they had received the letter and would be  “responding in due course.”

The groups involved are:

• The Residents of Berriew Group
• Llanerchydol Residents – Welshpool Frochas Group
• Upper Gwestydd Residents Group – Newtown
• Ardleen Residents Group
• Llangadfan Residents Group
• Llanwnog/Pontdolgoch Residents Group
• Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (Montgomeryshire
Branch)
• New Mills Residents Group
• Sustainable Food – Knighton
• Zero Carbon Llanidloes

 

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service