As the fate of Cranswick’s application for a large pig and poultry unit in Norfolk is decided today, the company has pointed out that the vast majority of the opposition to the proposal has come from outside the area.
King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council Planning Committee will today decide on the application to expand an existing site to house 14,000 pigs and 714,000 chickens near the villages of Methwold and Feltwell.
The planning process has gone on for more than three years and the proposal has become the target of a series of NGO campaigns – with thousands of complaints being sent into the Council by campaign groups based outside Norfolk.
Cranswick said it ‘fully recognised that a range of concerns and views have been expressed by local stakeholders and residents’, and had worked hard to address the issues.
But, ahead of the hearing, the company has published a graphic noting that here have been reports of over 15,000 complaints about the proposal.
It says that independent analysis shows that more than 90% of the objections come from outside the local area, defined as a 10km radius around the site, with many from outside the UK, including Rome, Lisbon, Calgary and California.
In a blow to the Hull-based company, in a 200-page report published in March, planning officers recommended that the application should be refused.
The report stated: “The public benefits of the development as proposed are outweighed by the potential environmental impacts of the scheme. The Council are not in a position to fully assess these impacts, despite the number of opportunities presented to the Applicant to submit further information, and as such the application should be refused.”
Cranswick position
Cranswick hit back, issuing a robust response that was heavily critical of the council in its statement to the planning committee.
It reiterated its arguments that the development will:
- Ensure better use of local land, improving the existing site, which currently permitted by the Environment Agency to house 29,000 pigs.
- Deliver higher welfare for pigs and poultry. All pigs at the farm will be reared to RSPCA Assured
Standards, while the number of chickens housed in a unit will be reduced by 20% compared to the Red Tractor standard. - Improve British food security, reducing the country’s reliance on imports.
Cranswick said the application is about producing more British food, to higher welfare standards, through the redevelopment of existing farms. The renovated site would produce 0.5% of the pigs, and 0.5% of the chickens, reared in the UK.
“At a time of rising prices, trade wars and escalating international tensions, now is the time Britain needs to produce more food at home, using modern, efficient and sustainable forms of farming,” it said in its briefing.
“Not doing so will have a detrimental impact on UK economic growth, on food prices for consumers locally and nationally, and on direct and indirect employment opportunities, within Norfolk and across the wider UK.”