Another intensive farm permission quashed

Following the issuing of a judicial review claim by Communities Against Factory Farming (CAFF), East Devon District Council has conceded that permission for an intensive livestock shed at Northcombe Farm, Offwell, Devon was granted unlawfully and should be quashed.

Permission was granted on the basis that the new livestock shed would replace an existing poultry shed and therefore would ostensibly amount to environmental betterment. The applicant argued that the nutrient and GHG impacts of livestock were lesser than the impacts of poultry. However, in granting permission the Council failed to ask itself whether the existing poultry shed remained in use and, if so, how likely that use was to continue. The Council therefore erred in its approach to the baseline position for the purposes of both Environmental Impact Assessment and planning fall back.

This is the latest of several intensive farm permissions to be quashed in the past year following legal challenge (see e.g. here, here and here). Increasing legal scrutiny is being applied to decisions on agricultural development that may have previously been treated as routine by local planning authorities.

Alex Shattock represented CAFF (Maya Pardo and Rose Patterson), instructed by Matthew McFeeley and Katherine Wood at Richard Buxton Solicitors.