Chicken shed plans thrown out

CONTROVERSIAL PROPOSALS to build two massive chicken sheds housing hundreds of thousands of birds in the Shropshire countryside have been thrown out.

Councillors feared the developments would impact on highway safety as well as on the landscape of the area near Nesscliffe.

Farmer John Warner and his family from Kinton Farm, Nesscliffe, had applied to build the four broiler units housing up to 175,000 chickens on a two and a half acre site at Great Ness.

And in a separate application G C Davies and Co, of Red House Farm, Little Ness, near Shrewsbury, applied to Shropshire Council to build five broiler units covering three acres and accommodating almost a quarter of a million chickens on a site close to the village of Little Ness.

But yesterday Shropshire Council's strategic planning committee refused planning permission for the sheds, which are close to Nesscliffe Hill and The Cliffe beauty spots.

Action

The Warner family had said the new farming enterprise would take over from their sugar beet business which was wiped out with the closure of the Allscott sugar beet factory.

But the plans led to a campaign from neighbours with an action group fighting the application.

The Nesses Action Group said with chicken units already in the area it would bring the number of chicken processed in the parish to six million a year.

The group was supported by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, who today welcomed the decision to reject the applications.

Andy Boddington, chairman of CPRE Shropshire, said: "Planners today made the right decisions to protect what they say is the county's greatest asset – its natural and historic environment.

"The proposed sheds were far too large for the location. Views from The Cliffe and surrounding countryside would have been badly affected.

"The units would have led to unacceptable overnight traffic through tight country lanes and tranquil villages.

"Neither applicant had managed to satisfy environmental rules."

By Sue Austin