Mick Summersgill, our Green Party campaigner for Marden and Yalding, is supporting the campaign to stop the building of the massive chicken farm at Chainhurst (see https://www.welovechainhurst.co.uk/ ).
Mick has outlined eight reasons to oppose the development:
- Additional Traffic and Flooding: Hunton Road at the site entrance and at Green Lane junction near Marden frequently floods and vehicles are often stranded on the main road; how will the company manage to maintain operations on a 24/7 basis in such a situation. The Chainhurst access roads all have 7.5t weight limit; what kind of danger will 40 HGV movements a week during normal operations pose to residents of the hamlet and bike/horse users of the road to Marden? There will also be much more HGV traffic than that during regular flock removal and disinfections.
- Footpaths: Two regularly used and historical footpaths are to be diverted, making the current circular rural route 3/4-mile longer, taking one of them next to the river (supposedly an ‘improvement’). The river overtops its banks regularly in winter, so that would make it impassable. The other footpath would have 2.5m fencing on either side; hardly a pleasant rural view as it is at present. The revised entry to the site for foot traffic is where it regularly floods and there is no footway down Hunton Road for pedestrians (with large open ditches on each side).
- Impact on Biodiversity: Their own ecologist has admitted that there are designated ancient woodland and county important pastures and pond sequences on site. The proposal appears to cut through wildlife corridors for road accesses and hut construction, severing existing wildlife corridors. Their proposal also fails to suggest a 15m barrier between fences and ancient woodland, as required by national regulations / guidance, and uses a 5m ‘gap’ instead.
- Inadequate Reporting of Wildlife: Four ecological reports on bats, dormice, badger and invertebrates remain unpublished ten weeks after document submission, and two others are ‘interim’ (‘Breeding Birds’ and ‘Reptiles’). The reports fail to highlight badger evidence or even consider deer and otter use of the habitat (as evidenced locally). RSPB has objected to the envisaged disturbance of turtle dove habitat.
- Pollution of Environment: The chicken sheds emit ammonia to the air which settles out in the vicinity and can affect lichen on (ancient) trees and vegetation in general. It will also deposit on land surrounding the development, particularly into the River Beult SSSI on two sides of the boundary. The chickens will leave excrement outside which can wash directly into the Beult and/or through the soils and perched groundwaters into the ditches. Regular flooding of the chicken ranges will only increase transmission of nitrogen and phosphate into the SSSI. The river is already in poor condition, and requiring improvement (as reported formally by EA/NE in 2018); these two regulators have also objected to MBC on these specific grounds.
- Animal Welfare: The applicant seeks to improve the health of their stock by planting trees outside, and also complying with national standards on ‘free-range’ egg production. These standards aim for a maximum stocking density of 2000 hens per hectare of range; the applicant’s numbers suggest they will have a stocking of 2500 hens per hectare by using all available space (excluding access roads and protected woodland/pond areas) on the site, but this would increase to 3500 hens per hectare in one zone when it is flooded. The applicant also suggests, in order to state that there is no increased impact on the river, that the hens only deposit 10% of their waste outdoors; the DEFRA documents say a ‘free-range’ flock spend 10-20% outside, but ones with better habitats can spend 25-30% outside. Using those larger numbers, the excrement amount doubles (or triples) and the Beult would be overwhelmed by excess nitrogen and phosphorous from defecating hens, thus decimating the fish populations and carrying material downriver to affect human users in Yalding.
- Protection of Pond Habitats: There are great crested newts on site in several pond locations, yet there are proposals to sever the corridors that they use to travel to hibernation sites (they don’t overwinter in ponds!). Their analysis did not conform to a full survey or provide reasons behind protection methods to be used. The great crested newts would be restricted to five pond locations, all of which would be fed by surface or perched groundwater run-off that has been affected by chicken excrement, and therefore get badly eutrophic in Summer. There is no mention of any risk to newts by chicken beaks.
- Landscape Effects: The miles of 2.5m high fencing would alter the current landscape beyond comprehension. The three 250m long sheds (with twin 8m high grain silos) cannot be disguised by ‘clever’ choice of external cladding or the planting of trees (which will take decades to grow and partially obscure the views). No use has been made of long-distance super-imposed views in the applicant’s documents and the effects from the Greensand Way / ridge are somehow deemed minimal. The erection of a large industrial shed on the north side of the river (Wares Farm in Linton) has shown how intrusive such a building can be with its ‘environmental planting’ showing no amelioration to date.
