Chicken farm expansion refused

Plans to double the size of a chicken farm near Newtown have been refused by Powys county planners.

The application by WL Hamer was lodged with Powys County Council more than five years ago in December 2019.

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The proposal was for a free range poultry unit to house 32,000 egg laying birds at Upper Bryn Farm which is just to the southeast of Abermule.

The applications included installation of feed bins, formation of vehicular access together with all other associated works.

The farm already has a 32,000 bird poultry unit which also includes a herd of cows and a flock of sheep.

Abermule with Llandyssil community council discussed the application in March 2020 and said they supported it.

The application was one of a dozen chicken farm applications that have been in limbo for the best part of two years.

It emerged that between January and May 2023 all planning proposals for chicken farms in the county were issued with “holding directions” from the Welsh Government.

The Upper Bryn Farm application was put on hold in March 2023.

This is so that a Welsh Government minister can consider taking charge of the decision making process after being asked to “call in” the applications.

However, Powys county planners were told that they could continue to process the application as normal, and the holding direction did not “prevent” the application being refused.

Last month, Welsh Government planners updated the current call in position of the application and said that they were “unable to consider call in” anymore  as the scheme had been: “determined by the local planning authority.”

Powys County Council’s head of planning and regulatory services, Gwilym Davies explained the grounds for refusing the application.

Mr Davies said: “The proposed development fails to demonstrate that there would not be an unacceptable impact on highway safety, and it fails to demonstrate that it would not cause the deterioration of protected sites in terms of aerial emissions.”