The High Court in London upheld planning permission granted to a 210,000-bird chicken shed after it found that the council properly considered the impact of the production of 2,000 tonnes of chicken manure per year.
The council gave permission for the development in September. Birds would be brought to the building as day-old chicks and reared for 38 days. After being removed for slaughter, the buildings would be cleaned out and the manure would be used as fertiliser on agricultural land. More than a thousand tonnes would be used on nearby fields.
However, a local resident took the case to the High Court arguing that the Environmental Statement attached to the report was incomplete, and that the council hadn’t properly considered the effect on local residents of storing, and later spreading, such quantities of manure near their homes.
However, in a ruling today, judge Rhodri Price Lewis QC, said that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) “is a dynamic process that starts with the [Environmental Statement] but does not end with that statement”.
When council members were considering their planning decision, they had much more information to rely on than the Environmental Statement, the judge said.
“In my consideration, the defendant clearly did take into account the material consideration of the potential effects of manure management in deciding to grant planning permission… The issue is expressly dealt with in the officer’s report.”
He said the report contained “ample information of this material consideration for the members to form their views, assisted, no doubt, by their site view and local knowledge”.
Nicola Squire -and- Shropshire Council
Planning Court (Rhodri Price Lewis QC) 6 July 2018
