A proposed “megafarm” that would have become one of Europe’s largest and house some 714,000 hens as well as 14,000 pigs has been denied an operating permit by the Environment Agency (EA).
Citing environmental concerns, the permit request made by food giant Cranswick has been rejected by the EA and welcomed by the local community and the areas MP.
This follows a decision from earlier this year when King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council’s planning committee voted unanimously against the planning application for the proposed megafarm sites in Methwold and Feltwell, both in Norfolk
Terry Jermy MP, Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk, called this a victory for “local people and the environment.”
Jermy said, “This has been a long time coming, but we finally have a decision that protects local residents and the environment. Hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin for this proposal. I have always said this was a red-line for me as the MP for the area.
“We need further discussion about how we have food security in this country and megafarms are not the answer. We need farms with high means of animal welfare and sustainability.”
Norfolk has already been dubbed the “megafarm capital of Europe” with statistics from Compassion in World Farming showing there are now 122 megafarms in the County and 25,748,309 factory farmed animals.
Cranswick PLC in the past few months have been subject to undercover investigations in which on two of their farms there has been systematic animal welfare abuses.
Earlier this year, following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Environment Agency by Terry Jermy MP, it has been revealed that intensive livestock farms across England have violated environmental regulations nearly 7,000 times between 2015 and 2024.
The data also shows that the Environment Agency carried out approximately 17 inspections of intensive livestock units per week in which 75% of those inspections found breaches.
During this time period, there were over 9,000 inspections at over 1,500 sites. Shockingly, when significant pollution incidents are found, most result in no further significant action. For the most serious breaches (category 1 and 2), over half received either no further action, ‘advice/guidance’ or a ‘warning’, and staggeringly, less than half of the incidents recorded received further action such as a formal warning, and less than 1% received a ‘recommended’ prosecution.
