Rushden-area residents group Cluck Off voices objections to controversial chicken farm plans

Planning permission is being resought by Bedfordia Farms Ltd for an intensive chicken farm on arable land approximately 1.2km south-east of Avenue Road, Rushden; 1.1km north-east of Bedford Road, Rushden, 1.5km south of Newton Bromswold and 800m north-west of Knotting, across the county boundary in Bedfordshire.

The broiler rearing includes six linked poultry buildings and ancillary structures on land north-east of Westwood Anaerobic Digestion Plant in Bedford Road, Rushden.

If successful, the application submitted to North Northants Council would see a factory farm which could raise more than two million birds a year on the 55-acre site – the equivalent of more than 27 football pitches.

Speaking on behalf of Cluck Off, Yelden resident Reese Chesher said: “There will be two million chickens that pass through the unit a year. Not only will that be inhumane – they will spend their entire lives without seeing sunlight, they will live among their own droppings.

“It will be a nightmare for local residents – the smell from when they clean out the factory every seven weeks, there’s potential health issues for residents.

“And it’s a rural, unspoilt landscape. I think people should act and oppose this factory to make sure that North Northants Council does not approve this project.”

The broiler unit is designed to raise 2,339,000 birds per year with the birds’ current animal welfare legislation being allowed to be kept at 22 birds per square metre.

Chicks would be introduced to the poultry houses when a day old and would be reared for about 38 days under ‘controlled and monitored conditions’. After 38 days the chickens would be manually caught and transported away from the site for ‘processing’.

Operating on an ‘all-in, all-out’ basis, the broiler unit would see all six poultry houses stocked and emptied at the same time.

Councillors from Rushden Town Council will discuss the application tonight (Tuesday, July 28) at the council meeting at 7.30pm in Rushden Hall and Roger Barnes is due to voice his opposition

Mr Barnes, a Newton Bromswold resident, has experience keeping a flock of free-range chickens and he is opposed to the method and scale of the chicken farm.

He said: “This is going to affect all of us – the smell, the flies, the rats that will come in with the mountains of manure.

“I used to keep 500 hens, but the density of 22 hens per square metre is appalling. If I kept two dogs in that square metre, I would probably be put in prison, fined and banned from keeping animals. I would never do that, but remember these are sentient animals.”

Original plans in 2017 attracted huge levels of opposition, including from the Cluck Off campaign group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

The application was withdrawn in February 2018 but in August 2021 Bedfordia Farms submitted newly revised air and manure plans to address environmental concerns.

Nearly 2,500 objections to the scheme have been lodged since it was first proposed in 2018.

Objections include the impact on traffic, access and highway safety, severe risks regarding ‘noise pollution and pervasive odours’ and the degradation of landscape and its character and harm to protected wildlife.

Bedfordia Farms Ltd estimates the broiler unit would cost £6.23m to build, with construction extending over five to six months and represent a ‘significant investment into the rural economy’.

But the application says five permanent full-time equivalent jobs would be created.

In its submission, Bedfordia states ‘animal welfare is closely regulated in law, and Bedfordia is committed to following Defra’s Code of practice for the welfare of meat chickens and meat breeding chickens (2018)’.

On its website, Bedfordia describes itself as ‘long-term stewards of the landscape’, ‘committed to enhancing the natural ecology’ of the area. The application admits there could be potential ‘unpleasant odours’, ‘dust and ammonia’ but says there would be ‘insignificant impact on air quality at existing nearby properties’, with no ‘requirement for mitigation beyond the best practice design measures embodied in the broiler unit design’.

Ian Beaver lives in Avenue Road, Rushden, and thinks the whole planning application should start from scratch.

He said: “Enough is enough! They really need to do the whole thing again because a lot residents aren’t aware of it. I think it needs to be stopped because it’s being done under the radar. So many residents have changed – they know nothing about it.”

To find out more about the application, which will be considered by North Northants Council, search for 18/01284/FUL via the planning portal on the council website.