Fish Legal takes River Wye Poultry Production Pollution Threat to the High Court
Missing Salmon Alliance Member, Fish Legal, has issued proceedings in the High Court in Cardiff challenging the decision by Powys County Council to grant planning permission to double the size of an industrial poultry unit near Builth Wells in the River Wye catchment from 90,000 birds to 180,000.
Fish Legal warned that it has not assessed the effect of tonnes of additional poultry manure that will be turned into digestate and spread on land in the River Wye catchment.
Powys County Council has confirmed that it intends to defend the claim.
The River Wye is a highly protected habitat by law. It is designated as a Special Area of Conservation because it supports species such as the river weed ranunculus, white clawed crayfish, sea lamprey, brook lamprey, twaite shad, Atlantic salmon and allis shad. However, currently 60% of the River Wye and its catchment fail environmental targets for phosphates; a key pollutant that causes algal blooms on the river and adversely affects its ecology.
Justin Neal, Solicitor at Fish Legal said:
“The Council has effectively said it doesn’t need to concern itself with what happens to the manure and other chicken waste that is transported off site from this development. Given that the intention is to spread it on fields next to a tributary of the Wye, they should have looked into the possible impacts on the river from pollution.”
He added:
“Whilst we have some sympathy with farmers who want to diversify or increase their output, this has to be seen in the context of on-going ecological collapse of the river Wye, the continuing trend of placing the units in the Wye catchment, a failure of planners to properly consider pollution risks and the failure of NRW to regulate and provide sound advice to planners.”
As an Alliance of six organisations, we will build on the existing work of our partners and maximise our impact by taking a coordinated approach and vital action in order to halt and reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon.
The goal of the Missing Salmon Alliance is to build an evidence-base to influence national and international decision-makers to regulate activities that adversely impact wild Atlantic salmon.
The Missing Salmon Alliance
The MSA is comprised of the following members:
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, the Angling Trust with Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust and Fisheries Management Scotland.
https://www.missingsalmonalliance.org