New poultry units – planning and environmental permissions advice
New extension being added to a chicken unit © Tim Scrivener Applicants seeking planning consents and environmental permits for poultry housing must meet increasingly tough pollution prevention regulations and high upfront costs for environmental mitigation measures.
Some regions with an already high density of broiler and free-range egg farms are now considered to be virtually off limits for new housing, since the prospect of securing permission and a permit is unlikely.
See also: What the latest planning reforms mean for farms and rural areas
Planning consultant Ian Pick says the uncertainty and cost are putting off would-be developers. “At one time we would have 50 planning applications for free-range egg units on the go. At this point in time it is two or three,” he says.
But in other parts of the UK, new units are being established and existing ones expanded.
Ian says that with a strategic choice of site and a willingness to invest in high planning fees and the required mitigation measures, farmers are getting applications through the approvals process.
Here, he runs through the planning considerations and options.
Geography and site
A new poultry development needs both planning permission and an environmental permit before it can operate.
Permits are issued only if the environmental regulator – for example, the Environment Agency in England and Natural Resources Wales in Wales – believes the facility will be designed, constructed and operated in a manner that will not cause significant pollution of the environment or harm to human health.
Farms in catchments protected by the Habitats Regulations 2017, and which must meet nutrient neutrality rules for phosphates or nitrates, face an expensive and time-consuming process to secure planning consent and a permit to operate a poultry enterprise.
Nutrient neutrality is the outcome achieved when a particular land use or a specific development within catchment areas of vulnerable watercourses does not result in an increase in phosphate and nitrate levels in those watercourses beyond current levels.
If proposed poultry housing is within a catchment where the nutrient concentration in the watercourse is deemed too high, the farmer must demonstrate that the development is nutrient neutral, or propose on-site mitigation measures to achieve the required neutrality.
In some parts of the UK, planners will sign off a poultry planning application only if they are completely confident that the new development will not add any additional nutrients to the habitat.
In Wales, the government has issued holding directions on 12 planning applications for poultry-related development in Powys, a county with one of the UK’s highest concentrations of poultry units.
These directions prevent planning permission being granted until ministers have assessed whether the applications should be called in.
A government spokesman stressed that these directions did not prevent the planning authority consulting on the application, or indeed refusing it.
Where are permissions more likely to be achieved?
Redeveloping old sites is generally more straightforward than building on greenfield sites, Ian advises.
Locations outside nutrient neutrality catchments are also an obvious good bet, and so is being as distant as possible from ecological sites protected from ammonia impacts.
“It is now very rare to have a site that is not within 10km of a protected ecological site, a Natural England requirement, but there are some counties, for example, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, where there are very few sites of special scientific interest,” says Ian.
“Regions with a relatively low density of livestock are considered more favourable too, so there are fewer farms that can act in combination.”
Applications require a clear manure management strategy. In the West Midlands and Wales, securing a contract to take this to a permitted facility such as an anaerobic digestion plant is a key issue.
“We don’t get too many problems with chicken muck in the east of the country where there is a big arable acreage and also a large demand for it for power generation. For instance, Thetford [Power Station] uses around 500,000t/year and that is an easy solution for the muck issue,” says Ian.
Mitigation requirements
Planners and regulators in the West Midlands and Wales are increasingly demanding air scrubbers as part and parcel of schemes to curb ammonia emissions, a key environmental target for both the sector and the government.
Ian believes these systems are cost-prohibitive and a reason why even developments that have secured consent are not being built.
“We have had approvals for two poultry sheds in Gloucestershire and four in Powys, but these have not yet been built because there is a requirement for air scrubbers. This has made the developments financially unviable,” he says.
It is not only the upfront investment that can be high. Ian estimates that a scrubber for a standard 50,000-bird shed can be in the region of £150,000.
The running cost of a scrubber for one shed can be £100/day for a business on a 50p/kW tariff, and he says there is no economic benefit to flock performance.
An issue Ian has come up against is regulators requiring air scrubbing when the application process is already under way and applicants have committed considerable investment in getting to that point.
“To salvage the application to avoid refusal, we’ve had to amend some schemes part way through to include air scrubbing, but of the farmers I have worked with in this situation, only one, in Shropshire, has decided to go ahead with it because the others considered it not financially viable to do so.’’
Air scrubbers v heat exchangers
Regulators will demand the installation of air scrubbers that have been specifically tested in poultry environments, not those that have been trialled only on pig units, for example.
The liquid produced by an air scrubber is classified as waste and must therefore be disposed of in a means other than being spread on land – for instance, through a waste contract with a treatment works, Ian advises.
Heat recovery units offer a better all-round solution for mitigating ammonia emissions, he believes. He has successfully achieved consents to allow this system instead of an air scrubber in six recent planning applications.
“Heat exchangers reduce energy costs, so they have a tangible benefit too,’’ he says. “Air scrubbers are simply a cost with no benefit to the farmer.’’
What about planning fees?
Planning application fees for poultry housing have seen massive increases in recent years and there is a move by the UK government to increase them by a further 35%.
For a single shed application, expect to pay about £12,000 in council charges on the current fee scale, Ian says.
But council fees reduce based on the size of the project so there are economies of scale with multiple houses.
It might be £24,000 for two, £34,000-£35,000 for four, and £44,000 for six, he explains.
Factor in the cost of the environmental permit and professional fees, reports and technical assessments on top – these are required whether permission is being sought for one shed or 10.
For a four-shed application, those fees combined can add up to £70,000-£80,000, says Ian.
Some clients face much higher costs, for example, where appeals have been necessary or the applications have been subject to judicial review by third parties.