Exclusive:
UK food producer Cranswick is facing rising opposition over its plans to build two farms in Norfolk that would hold 48,000 pigs and 6.7 million chickens per year
Earlier in the year I reported from Norfolk where villagers living by a mega-farm claim they suffer from nosebleeds, headaches and breathing problems due to the air pollution and chronic stench. Residents also claimed of hearing “harrowing squeals by distressed pigs”.
The firm, Cranswick, a FTSE 250 company that supplies the UK’s major supermarkets, is facing opposition again, this time from two nearby villages, Methwold and Feltwell, after it submitted plans for the UK’s biggest factory farm. The two farms would hold up to 48,000 pigs and 6.7 million chickens a year.
Structures to house these animals, which will replace the smaller facilities, are just 440ft from the Breckland Special Area of Conservation, home to rare species including the nightjar, stone curlew and woodlarks. As well as the impact this farm will have on local wildlife, objections are piling in about concerns about an increase in lorry traffic, as well the impact of living next to an “ammonia plume”.
Simon Pope, campaigns lead for Four Paws UK said the plans were “bad for animal welfare, human health and the environment”. He added: “We cannot sleepwalk towards a future that is reliant on factory farming to feed our nation.
“The millions of animals in these systems are more likely to suffer from disease and pain for the duration of their short lives, often unable to access the outdoors or express their natural behaviours.” He added: “They don’t want this cruelty on their doorstep.”
Cranswick, which employs 14,000 people across the UK, said the project would create a sustainable and modern farm helping to deliver affordable food. The UK must increase the amount of food it produces but not like this.
Welfare cannot be a priority in intensive farms, while to feed numbers on this scale will rely on huge amounts of imported soya – and then there’s the copious amounts of energy for heat and light also required. Given the number of responses, the council can be under no illusion of the strength of feeling, not just among their constituents but also the wider public.
