Residents in Suffolk close to several new planned intensive poultry farms have said they will object to the developments, which they argue will damage the environment and increase traffic.
Multiple planning applications have been lodged in recent months, related to the new Cranswick-owned processing plant being built near Eye in Suffolk.
A total of 19 new poultry houses are planned in the villages of Horham and Southolt, which would produce more than 800,000 birds every five weeks.
Some local councillors are also opposed to the developments. Jill Erben, a Southolt councillor who co-chaired the meeting, told the East Anglian Daily Times villages ought to be aware that they were becoming the “centre of poultry production and intensive farming. If we allow it to go ahead it will impact very heavily on all of us,” she added.
Another councillor said the county was being “totally and utterly destroyed”.
Last autumn, Cranswick has begun construction of its new £60m processing plant.
The new site is due to open in late 2019, when it will be operating the most efficient poultry processing facilities both in the UK and Europe, supplying leading UK retailers and other manufacturers with fresh poultry. The site will employ over 700 people, with approximately 300 new jobs created in the region and the remaining staff transferred from Cranswick’s existing production facility in Weybread. Cranswick already operates three food processing sites and runs pig and chicken farming operations across Norfolk and Suffolk; employing over 2,000 people in the region.
