Villagers in outcry at bid for kennels
Saturday 12th July 2008, 11:50AM BST.
Campaigners fighting against plans for a hunting kennels in Shropshire have vowed to vote with their feet at a public meeting next week.
Dozens of residents living in and near Whixall, near Whitchurch, will turn out at a meeting of Wem Rural Parish Council on Thursday to show their strength of feeling against plans for the kennels in the village.
The North Shropshire Hunt has outlined plans for the kennels, for up to 80 dogs, to be sited at Greenfields, Ossage Lane, Whixall.
The plans have been resubmitted after planning permission was refused earlier this year because the hunt did not supply enough information on time.
Pat Hutchinson, from Whixall, said residents were against the proposed kennels because they would generate extra noise and traffic, and hounds out exercising would disrupt local wildlife. She also said people were concerned about dead stock being brought into the village and spreading disease.
Mrs Hutchinson said she hoped dozens of people would attend the meeting, to protest about the kennels.
She said a group of residents had staged a silent protest earlier this year because Wem Rural Parish Council had approved the plans without consulting residents. “We hope a lot of people will turn out in force,” she said.
Nobody from the North Shropshire Hunt was available for comment today.
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I live in this community and can only add my support to this campaign. Despite the hunt’s best endeavours to brand the objectors as a bunch of anti-hunt protestors in the hope that they will be discredited in some way, the community’s collective objections are solely on the grounds of the site being unsuitable for the proposed use. The threat to our internationally recognised wildlife sites is immeasurable, and the noise generated by the hounds will ruin our peaceful neighbourhood. The livestock farmers and smallholders are horrified at the number of deadstock-carrying farm vehicles that will be travelling our lanes without any regard for biosecurity, and many are concerned about road safety and the inevitable fouling of verges and roads. I urge you all to make your objections known to the planning department at NSDC before July 24.
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How can you say that the noise produced will ruin our peaceful area when there are lorries, Skip lorries and vans hurtling up and down the roads. And also the amount of Boy Racers that seem to appear all day every day on a day trip to the local scrap yard with music blaring.
I doubt very much the hounds will be a danger to the Moss. The only danger I have seen is dog walkers with they’re dogs off the leads ambling aroung like they own the place!
I also doubt if any farmer in they’re right mind would take a diseased animal off they’re yard and cart it around the countryside, have you ever seen the slaughter lorries full of deadstock driving around.
I have and they are usually full with at least 6 or 7 full grown beasts as they don’t make speacial journey’s for one animal! Have you smelt the Chicken farms they’re far worse.
I think people need to open they’re eyes as to what is already in Whixall with regards to smells and noise.
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In reponse to horseylady’s comment.
And you think we need yet more noise, yet more vehicles and yet more contamination in our community? Wake up and smell the coffee before all you can smell is the dog excreta!
The hounds do pose a very real threat to the local environment. We are lucky enough to have rich wildlife corridors emanating into the farm landscape from the Moss. These are not gated, and nor are some of the community’s gardens. There will be 80 hounds on 5-mile exercise routes twice a day under the ‘control’ of one huntsman. The various scents will be just too good to ignore. Just how long do you think it will be before there is an ‘incident’?
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