CAMPAIGN for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW), the Welsh countryside charity, has responded to the Welsh Government’s announcement that it will take over determination of eleven outstanding Powys Planning Applications for Intensive Poultry Units, calling the move “long overdue” and “an essential step toward protecting Powys’ environment”.
On November 13, the Welsh Government advised Powys Head of Planning that it would take over determination of eleven outstanding Powys Planning Applications for Intensive Poultry Units.
CPRW wholeheartedly welcomes this long overdue move.
Most of these applications have been stuck on a mysterious public Government website list of “applications currently under consideration by the Welsh Ministers” ever since May 2023.
So far, they have been labelled “awaiting sight of LPA Officer’s report” but Powys hasn’t published any LPA Officer’s reports for these cases. So why the change?
Everybody now knows that excess manure spreading threatens our rivers. The Welsh Government admits that the number of intensive poultry units across mid Wales has already given rise to substantial controversy. The issues it wants to address are the failure to control the destination of chicken manure and digestate made from chicken manure, the detrimental impacts of anaerobic digesters on the natural environment and the cumulative impact of intensive poultry units on the environment, including spread of diseases.
CPRW has been flagging up the huge number of intensive poultry units in Powys, and the cumulative environmental risks, including disease, for ten years. In 2020 the County Times said “Powys deserves its title of Wales’ ‘poultry capital’ new figures have shown … almost five times as many applications for chicken farms have been submitted here than across the entire rest of Wales in the last three years”.
Powys now has an estimated 10 million chickens, well over 60 times more chickens than people. The eleven applications represent another 677,000 chickens.
The Welsh Government also describes the gap in regulation and the uncertainty around the role of the planning system as a “novel issue”. The issue is old but the increase in legal scrutiny by environmental organisations fed up with lack of effective action is new. CPRW has been campaigning for years to abolish the “regulatory gap” between Environmental Permits and Powys planning permission.
The gap arises because Natural Resources Wales’ Environmental Permits do not cover manure spreading or manure export to anaerobic digesters so NRW has been advising Powys to add planning conditions covering manure management to planning approvals. CPRW has frequently reminded both authorities that these conditions are pointless window-dressing because they have never been either monitored or enforced.
Until now, the Welsh Government has refused to engage with the cumulative impacts of the intensive poultry sector in Powys. In 2018, in response to a CPRW petition to control Powys poultry expansion, Welsh Minister Lesley Griffiths said that, given the existing regulatory framework and while research furthers understanding, she was content for further development to take place. And it did!
Dr Christine Hugh-Jones, CPRW Trustee, said: “We hope that, at last, the Welsh Government intends to bring real change for the Powys environment.
“What a pity that this news came on the very same day as Natural Resources Wales ignored all the objections received during a dedicated public consultation and issued Environmental Permits for three new intensive poultry expansions in Powys.
“Powys has carried the environmental burden of unregulated poultry expansion for far too long and CPRW has repeatedly raised the alarm.
“We hope this signals a genuine shift toward meaningful oversight and lasting protection for our rivers, landscapes and communities.”
