Are you still angry about or irritated by the issues caused by the intensive poultry farming at Newbridge Farm? Please think about the following questions:

- Do you object to anyone who would significantly and flagrantly breach their planning permission and seek to get away with it?
- Do you value democracy and the accountability of your district council?
- Do you take exception to a Birmingham-based multi-million-pound company causing a blight on our part of the Somerset countryside by harming our area’s amenity, the well-being of villagers and our local economy?
- Have you noticed or been affected by the odour of chicken faeces and ammonia occurring in the village every six weeks or so since October 2016?
- Are you concerned about the potential health and environmental risks from unfiltered bio-aerosol emissions such as E-coli, salmonella and campylobacter from 200-300 thousand chickens? 
- Do you object to the animal welfare issues of intensive factory farming?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of those questions, you have a window of opportunity to do something about what is going on at the Newbridge Farm poultry units.

After months of procrastination between Sedgemoor District Council (SDC) and the site owner, Amber Real Estate Investments (AREI), SDC has finally proceeded to determine the application by AREI to keep the erroneous ‘goosewing grey’ roofing material on the sheds at Newbridge Farm and address other planning irregularities. This is despite SDC being continually challenged by our planning consultant, who is a specialist in broiler farm developments, and has been backed up with legal advice from a specialist environmental law barrister.

“So what…?”, you might say, “…it’s just about the colour of the roof. Who cares?” Well, we should all care because the applicant is trying to get away with a flagrant and major breach of a very specific condition that, according to planning case law, should render the permission invalid; and SDC is being overly lenient about this and all of the other issues because it has not taken any enforcement action. Why is this? If you were given permission to build a bungalow and you built a two-storey house, the Council would almost certainly order you to demolish the house and build the bungalow as permitted originally. There appears to be one set of rules for us mere citizens and a completely different set of rules for large, powerful and rich commercial companies.

However, with your help, we have the opportunity to reject AREI’s proposal and put pressure on SDC to refuse the application. Potentially, this could trigger the long-delayed enforcement action to force AREI to comply with the original planning permission conditions. This would mean that AREI would have to spend a lot of time and money ripping off the wrong coloured roofing material and replace it with the correct colour – stopping at least two ‘crop cycles. With the operation running with a much-reduced number of birds because of pressure from the Environment Agency, it may become uneconomical for AREI’s sister company, Hook 2 Sisters, to continue the cruel, intensive farming of broiler chickens – well, we can hope. Alternatively, a refusal by SDC may force the site owner to apply for full retrospective planning permission or even appeal but given that in reality, the site has proven to be totally inappropriate for such an operation, the existing permission may be revoked, or a ‘new’ permission not granted.

So, what can you do? We all have until Wednesday 3 October to comment on AREI’s application to remove Condition 3 so that they can keep the eye-sore ‘goosewing grey’ roofing material, which SDC specifically opposed in the original application; and to vary Condition 2 for the approved plans to overcome other breaches of permission. You can submit your own comments or, if it helps, you can copy, edit and paste the following text into the comments section to get across the key points, selecting the ‘Against’ option before clicking on the submit button:

I am/we are* against this application because the applicant has:
- Sought to defy the sensible and appropriate conditions placed on it by using a type of planning application to ‘wipe the slate clean’ and continue to cause adverse impacts on local amenity, quality of life and the local economy. 
- Breached Condition 3 of the planning permission by installing the banned ‘goosewing grey’ light-coloured roofing material, despite the very specific requirements of the Condition imposed by the local planning authority, which is such a conspicuous and major breach of permission that based on planning case law, I/we* believe it renders the whole development as unauthorised.
- Failed to convince me/us* that the measures to hide the banned roof colour with large conifer trees as set out in the Addendum to the Environmental Statement are in line with Sedgemoor District Council’s planning policies; run the risk of introducing non-native species into the area; will take years to take effect; and are contrary to the planning authority’s own Landscape Officer’s professional opinion.
- Failed to convince me/us* in the Addendum that they are doing enough to address the long-running odour issue that is causing so much distress to local residents and tourist-dependent businesses. While I/we* understand that the Environment Agency regulates the odour under the operator’s Environmental Permit, the continual emission of unacceptable levels of odour is still a breach of the original planning permission. An Environmental Permit can only be effective if the development is in a location where environmental impacts are capable of being controlled to acceptable levels; because the Environment Agency is failing to control the odour issue, the planning authority must now consider that the development is in a completely inappropriate location and revoke the existing permission.
- Not been penalised with the sort of enforcement action that would normally be expected for the continued breaches of planning permission.

(* delete as appropriate)

To submit your comments and/or objection online, please click the following link to view the planning application on the Sedgemoor District Council planning portal http://www.sedgemoor.gov.uk/Planning_Online/

Alternatively, send your comments or objection by email to, quoting ref 25/17/00047: planning.comments@sedgemoor.gov.uk, or write to:

Mrs D de Vries
Development Management
Sedgemoor District Council
Planning Comments 
Bridgwater House
King Square
Bridgwater
TA6 3AR

Good luck everyone!