The so-called free range egg production facility proposed for Llanfwrog Rural hasn't gone down at all well with its neighbours. The fact that the huge shed will ruin their view isn't a legitimate planning consideration but the additional traffic, the noise (the associated nitrogenous pollution) and the smell certainly is. Aside from the B5105 as it climbs towards Clawddnewydd, the area is quiet and bucolic. That now may not always be the case.
These days, farmers have to diversity and, if you look at Wales or indeed Britain, egg production units such as this are becoming more and more popular. They're springing up. Reliance on ruminants and other livestock no longer guarantees a good enough return. Through our supermarkets, we demand cheap food: meat prices are under pressure and egg production units such as this help to reduce consumer costs while giving the farmer a better return per acre. Everyone wins, except those who have to suffer from the industrialisation of the landscape. In that sense, it's no different to wind farms.
You have to ask, however, why the shed isn't located nearer to the applicant's farm. It is, after all, part of that business. Were it nearer or even adjacent to it, then most of the neighbour concerns would simply evaporate. The sceptic in me wonders whether the farmer doesn't want the noise or the smell next to him (who would?); or the unit, which will have its own independent access, is ripe for a future sale; or that this is an initial application and that the size of the unit (32,000 hens) will increase in time (to perhaps double); or all three.
So much for adjacent residents. What about Rhuthun/Ruthin town? The proposal is less than a mile from the town and due west-south-west. The prevailing wind will carry the smells and pollutants into town. Llanfwrog Urban will suffer most—as it does from the pig unit at Telpyn—but potentially anywhere in Rhuthun is downwind. For those of you who don't know the odour associated with chickens, you probably will soon. It ain't pleasant.
The land upon which the unit will find itself is better agricultural land for grazing than, for example, on the adjacent hilltops.
Then there's the traffic. Feed comes in. Waste and eggs go out (presumably not on the same vehicles at the same time!). The impact will actually be marginal on the B5015's pinchpoint at the Cross Keys so it's unlikely that it will generate anything like enough additional movements to justify the pie-in-the-sky calls for a by-pass.
The real eye-opener, though, for people like me who for years have bought free range eggs in the belief that the dear, healthy, liberated chickens have the freedom to wander aimlessly across some idyllic, peaceful and picturesque landscape is that this is a total myth. I am so naïve. It's enough to make you turn vegan. The chickens have access to the outside world through a small egress but, I'm reliably informed, they simply live their lives within the confines of the shed in which they were hatched in what are not pens as such but there are still restrictions on their movement.
My guess is that the last thing the farmer, his neighbours or planners will be thinking of is the roosters themselves.
You have to ask, however, why the shed isn't located nearer to the applicant's farm. It is, after all, part of that business. Were it nearer or even adjacent to it, then most of the neighbour concerns would simply evaporate. The sceptic in me wonders whether the farmer doesn't want the noise or the smell next to him (who would?); or the unit, which will have its own independent access, is ripe for a future sale; or that this is an initial application and that the size of the unit (32,000 hens) will increase in time (to perhaps double); or all three.
So much for adjacent residents. What about Rhuthun/Ruthin town? The proposal is less than a mile from the town and due west-south-west. The prevailing wind will carry the smells and pollutants into town. Llanfwrog Urban will suffer most—as it does from the pig unit at Telpyn—but potentially anywhere in Rhuthun is downwind. For those of you who don't know the odour associated with chickens, you probably will soon. It ain't pleasant.
The land upon which the unit will find itself is better agricultural land for grazing than, for example, on the adjacent hilltops.
Then there's the traffic. Feed comes in. Waste and eggs go out (presumably not on the same vehicles at the same time!). The impact will actually be marginal on the B5015's pinchpoint at the Cross Keys so it's unlikely that it will generate anything like enough additional movements to justify the pie-in-the-sky calls for a by-pass.
The real eye-opener, though, for people like me who for years have bought free range eggs in the belief that the dear, healthy, liberated chickens have the freedom to wander aimlessly across some idyllic, peaceful and picturesque landscape is that this is a total myth. I am so naïve. It's enough to make you turn vegan. The chickens have access to the outside world through a small egress but, I'm reliably informed, they simply live their lives within the confines of the shed in which they were hatched in what are not pens as such but there are still restrictions on their movement.
My guess is that the last thing the farmer, his neighbours or planners will be thinking of is the roosters themselves.
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