A legal challenge to Shropshire Council has been made over its decision to give planning permission for a major intensive poultry unit.
The application for judicial review was initiated and is funded by environmental campaigning group River Action.
River Action says it is determined to help prevent ecological damage to the catchment of the River Severn.
The claimant, Dr Alison Caffyn, who lives in Shropshire and is a member of River Action’s advisory board, is represented by the environment team at law firm Leigh Day. She is challenging Shropshire Council over its decision in May 2024 to give planning permission for an application by LJ Cooke & Son for a poultry production unit that will include four poultry rearing buildings, each over 100m long, and a biomass store with boilers at North Farm, Felton Butler, Montford Bridge, Shropshire. The unit would house 230,000 birds, 400m from an existing poultry site which is believed to house nearly half a million birds.
Permission was initially refused after Natural England advised that three protected sites, Shrawardine Pool, Lin Can Moss and Fenemere, could “be sensitive to impacts for aerial pollutants” and council officers said the plan did not detail proposals for handling chicken manure without an anaerobic digester.
However the plan was approved after LJ Cooke proposed exporting manure to a third party anaerobic digestion unit so that the digestate could be spread on farmland.
Dr Caffyn has applied for judicial review on several grounds including that there was a failure to assess the effects of spreading manure and the emissions from burning biomass, which as indirect effects of the development, needed to be assessed.
“There are already well over 20 million chickens in Shropshire, we don’t need more,” she said. “Before we know it, the River Severn will soon be suffering the same pollution load as the neighbouring Wye – all because of these misguided and ill-informed planning decisions by Shropshire Council.”
Leigh Day environment team solicitor Ricardo Gama, added: “Our client hopes that her claim for judicial review will set a precedent for local authorities across the country determining planning applications for similar developments which will cumulatively have severe impacts on protected sites. She believes that there needs to be a complete rethink of this approach.”