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22
Aug
New planning policies ‘strongly support’ case for huge chicken farm at Melmerby
The agent behind plans to create a huge poultry farm near Ripon has said new government planning policies “strongly support” the development.
The Stray Ferret revealed in May that Forest Poultry Ltd has applied to North Yorkshire Council to create a broiler poultry unit for meat production at Underlands Lane, Melmerby.
An estimated 2.7 million birds would be reared there each year.
Forest Poultry claims the proposed development “represents a sustainable and policy-compliant form of agricultural development within a suitable rural location”, but it has attracted strong opposition.
Protestors on August 8.
Ian Pick, of planning consultants Harrison Pick, which is acting on behalf of Forest Poultry, told the council that revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework, published on August 17, strengthen the case for the development.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said the changes provide “a more explicit presumption in favour of development in sustainable locations” and “back farmers and rural businesses”.
Mr Pick said the framework is of “critical importance in the determination of planning applications” and highlights how it supports schemes that boost agriculture, domestic food production, animal welfare, the environment and agricultural modernisation.
He concluded:
The August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework provides a strongly supportive national policy framework for the principle of the proposed broiler poultry unit at Melmerby.
There is no conflict with any national policy provision that would require refusal.
The landscape plan showing the six poultry houses. Image: Terrain Landscapes Ltd on behalf of Forest Poultry Ltd
Forest Poultry wants to build six steel poultry houses, each 126 metres long and 25 metres wide in Melmerby.
Each house will accommodate 60,000 birds, resulting in a total capacity of 360,000 birds across the site.
Day-old chicks will be delivered to the site and reared for 30 to 38 days before being killed. The buildings will then be cleaned and prepared for the next flock 10 days later.
Over a year, it is expected about 2.7 million birds will be produced by 7.5 flock cycles.
A demonstration against the plans took place on Underlands Road this month.
Sir James and Lady Graham, whose Norton Conyers manor house is just over two miles away, have become among the latest to object. They described the scheme as “cruelty on a massive scale”.
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