Site visit to decide future of plans for two large chicken sheds

A site visit will determine the future of unpopular plans to build two large chicken sheds at a farm on the Wrexham-Cheshire border.

Wrexham Council’s planning committee said it wanted further information before it decides whether to give the green light to proposals for two intensive poultry farming units housing more than 100,000 birds at Mulsford Farm in Sarn.

Approval for the facility, where chickens would be bred for meat production, had been backed by county planning officials despite a petition with more 9,000 signatures being submitted against it by animal rights activists PETA.

However, after hearing of residents’ reservations regarding the size of the sheds, which they claimed would be as big as two of Wrexham’s biggest supermarkets combined,  councillors asked to be shown round the site.

Voicing his objections, local resident Ian James said: “The proposed sheds are 108 metres long and a similar size in height.

“The proposals will result in sheds the same size as Asda and Tesco combined in a special landscape area.

“Please come and visit the site, but be careful when you’re coming up Mulsford Lane, which is very narrow.

“Our concerns regarding highways are many and are not detailed in this report, but are detailed in the 127 written representations you’ve received.

James Huxley, who is part of family-run DJ Huxley Farms Ltd, which is behind the application said that expanding into poultry production would secure the future of the business, which has been running since the 1860s.

He said: “Our aim is to diversify into poultry to to safeguard our future. The proposals would create two new jobs and sustain many others within the business.

“A modern, well-managed poultry farm has very little impact on the environment.”

Mr Huxley offered reassurances that the welfare of the chickens would be taken seriously and were subject to scrutiny from the relevant authorities, including the RSPCA.

Speaking before the meeting, PETA claimed that the plans would condemn up to 760,000 birds a year to what it described as ‘a life of misery and a violent death’.

Meanwhile, local councillor Rodney Skelland also objected to the proposals, “Normally I would support a planning application with farming connections, but there appears to be issues about this application that make me uneasy and that’s reflected by the number of objections.

“The site is not a farm, it’s a field in open countryside off Mulsford Lane.

“A previous application on this site for a grain store was rejected on the basis that it would have a detrimental impact.”

The majority of councillors backed plans to carry out a site visit in order to take a look at the size of the sheds and the nearby road network.

By Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme).