PLANS to build a giant chicken farm on the edge of Malvern could set a dangerous precedent for more poultry units to be built in the town.
That was the opinion of Colwall resident Tracy Elgar who raised fears after proposals to construct four chicken sheds, which will house a total of 200,000 chickens, on land at Chances Pitch in Colwall were submitted to Herefordshire Council.
An application was originally put forward in October last year, by Philip and Richard Houlbrooke, but the bid was withdrawn after more than 600 objections, including ones from Malvern Hills AONB and English Heritage, were made.
And concerns have been raised again over the smell, visual pollution and noise which could be caused by lorries travelling to the site to unload the sheds every 40 minutes from 3am to 3pm.
Mrs Elgar, of Colwall and Ledbury Action Group, added: “A lot of the objectors are worried about the precedent it would set.
“It is not just Colwall it would affect, it would start heading towards Malvern and there would be no stopping it.
“If one (chicken farm) is approved in direct line of the Malvern Hills the others would be approved quite easily.
“It is very, very serious for the area.
“Any planning application is only about that application, not about the need for chicken, and our question is; why here? What have they done to prove it can only go on that field.”
A public drop-in session was also held at Colwall Park Hotel on Saturday (July 11) in a bid to satisfy resident needs.
And Philip Houlbrooke quashed claims a precedent could be set and said he had offered to take residents to a similar development nearby to show them the positive side a poultry farm can have.
“There has been a lot of misconceptions about the smell but the new sheds are a lot more advanced than the older ones,” Mr Houlbrooke added. “They don’t use biomass heat and there is very little ammonia in the new ones.
“The units can not be too close together so there is no fear of setting a precedent and having one close to this one because they are all built with a reasonable distance between them.
“People have claimed it will effect tourism but we have informed all the local pubs, hotels and restaurants and none of them seem to be objecting.”
*What do you think, is a chicken farm what Colwall needs? Email your thoughts to Letters at [email protected].
