River campaigners are in the High Court today, taking on Shropshire Council to stop the expansion of an industrial-scale poultry unit in the River Severn catchment. The legal challenge targets a proposed 200,000-bird facility near Shrewsbury—part of what River Action describes as a “reckless and unsustainable” surge in intensive factory farming across the region.
This case has the potential to set an important precedent for local authorities across the UK, ensuring cumulative environmental impacts (i.e. the combination of multiple activities having a significant impact on the environment over time – ecological death by a thousand poultry units) of new agricultural developments on protected sites are properly assessed. Campaigners hope that this case will raise the bar on what authorities will need to consider before this and future developments are approved, stopping unlawful and harmful intensive farming developments in their tracks.
The judicial review, being heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, is supported and funded by environmental charity River Action and brought by River Action’s advisory board member and local campaigner Dr Alison Caffyn.
Dr Caffyn said:
Peaceful protest outside of the Cardiff Civil Justice Centre from 8:45AM
To coincide with the hearing, campaigners gathered outside the court in a peaceful protest, joined by the Goddess of the Wye—a striking 10-foot puppet symbolising the campaign to save Britain’s rivers from pollution. Campaigners were wearing chicken masks, held ‘choked by chickens’ placards and a banner that reads ‘Factory farms are killing our rivers’. The spectacle highlighted the ecological crisis unfolding across the country’s river catchments, which they say is due to the uncontrolled growth of industrial-scale farming.
Legal case
This case is challenging the lawfulness of Shropshire Council’s grant of planning permission for another intensive poultry unit in Shropshire.
The High Court will today consider the following arguments:
- Ground 1: The council failed to fully and lawfully assess the environmental impacts of the development and, in particular, the effects of spreading manure on land.
- Ground 2: The council acted unlawfully by imposing a condition which failed to prevent the spreading of manure on land and so failed to address concerns that the council had itself raised about the environmental effects of the development.
- Grounds 3 and 4: The council failed to carry out a lawful assessment before granting the permission (i) by determining the significance of some of development’s impacts by reference to thresholds, (ii) by failing to carry out a lawful in-combination (cumulative) assessment of those impacts, and (iii) by assuming incorrectly that a key form of mitigation in the form of air scrubbers would be continually operational.
Campaigners are pushing for the council’s decision to be found unlawful and quashed.
Charles Watson, Chair and Founder of River Action, said:
“Like some ghastly car crash in slow motion we’re watching the River Severn suffer the same fate as the Wye. Shropshire Council is simply rubber-stamping massive chicken factory farms without considering the potentially horrific cumulative environmental impact of stacking these industrial units up against each other. These farms are appearing all over the river’s catchment like a septic rash, with no credible plan to sustainably manage their huge toxic emissions of chicken manure. If we don’t stop them now, it’ll be too late for yet another iconic British river.”
Ricardo Gama, solicitor at Leigh Day, the firm representing Dr Caffyn, said:
“This is an important case in establishing the approach which planning authorities need to take when determining planning applications for intensive agricultural units. Our client believes that the failure by authorities to properly look at the cumulative impacts of the industrial levels of manure and other waste which these developments produce has led to the Wye and Severn river catchments being inundated with waste.”
The tide is turning on megafarms: holding livestock polluters to account
This hearing follows last month’s landmark judgment in National Farmers Union v Herefordshire County Council, with the High Court declaring farming manure as waste with huge implications for handling manure on farms everywhere – a major win in the fight against harmful agricultural practices.
It also follows the rejection of a megafarm in Methwold, Norfolk earlier this month due to environmental concerns.
These decisions should lead to tighter regulation, better planning and improvements to river health across the country. Today’s case is the next important step in the fight to clean up the UK’s severely polluted rivers.
