Plans lodged for for 2,000-pig farm in Mid Wales

GW and WW Jones of Hill Farm, Montgomery, have submitted the planning application to Powys County Council through agent Ian Pick Associates.

The application is for two pig rearing units that will house nearly 1,000 pigs each, for their partnership with Stockcroft Ltd who supply meat to brands such as Waitrose and McDonalds.

It will include a new roofed building to store the manure prior to it being spread across the farmland.

Currently the farm, run by Will and Debbie James, has 840 cross breading ewes and 217 breeding ewe lambs, but they are proposing to increase their business with the introduction of the pig units.

The application says pigs will go into the system at 7kg and out at 110kg, with the expectation that there are 2.2 cycles expected per year.

The manure shed for the big farm will run parallel to the pig rearing sheds, and will house 180 to 200 tones of manure when the system is at full capacity.

Severn Trent Water has said it has no objections to drainage in the plans and the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust said there are no archaeological impacts from the plans.

Environmental Health has stated there will be no odour impact from the proposed application, and no noise assessment impact will be required.

Natural Resources Wales said it would have no objections to the plans, so long as points made were taken into consideration.

It has asked the applicants to not have external lighting that shines onto hedgerows and effects wildlife.

The organisation has also asked for an air quality report so there is no impact from ammonia on the nearby Montgomery Canal.

Within the application online, there are a number of rejection letters from residents concerned about a number of issues, including the impact heavy goods vehicles coming to the farm will have on the road system.

Montgomery Town Council in their representations said it supports business diversification, but was concerned for many different reasons.

Their concerns centre around discrepancies in the planning documents and "misleading information".

It also said there would be an impact on registered historic landscape, and heavy traffic could effect the local area.

Another concern was that a parcel of land in the development which could be used for spreading manure is part of the Powys local development plan.