World Wildlife Fund warns council that proposed pig farm may be unlawful

Environmental group WWF has warned Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council that parts of the environmental impact assessment for a large pig farm application may be unlawful.

Wayland Farms has applied to build 14 pig rearing units to house 14,000 pigs at Airfield Farm, Feltwell Farm and Methwold Farm.

In a letter to the council, Jake White, head of legal advocacy at WWF-UK, said: ”WWF considers that two unlawful environmental statements have been produced in respect of the farms to date.”

Mr White said he wanted to raise “some significant issues in relation to the applications as they currently stand, so that a lawful environmental statement may be produced”.

He noted it had been accepted that the farms constitute Schedule 1 development within the meaning of Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017.

“Yet, in a scoping opinion for the farms dated 9 July 2021 which essentially adopts the applicant's approach set out in an earlier scoping report, dated 30 April 2021, the [council] wrongly and, WWF contends, unlawfully advised that the environmental effects caused by the impact of the development on climate and arising from the operational waste from the farms (in particular the pig manure and poultry litter) could be scoped out of the environmental impact assessment.”

Mr White said the resulting gaps “amount to patent defects” in the statement which also failed to provide the public and the council with “full knowledge of the environmental cost” of the projects, so rendering the environmental impact assessment process unlawful.

Operational and upstream greenhouse gas emissions should have been factored into the environmental statements as direct and indirect effects of the farms, he said.

The letter said:”The only reason given for scoping the impacts on climate out of the assessment was that other regulatory regimes will ensure the ‘emissions standards’ are met. This is an unlawful approach.”

Mr White said the lawful approach would be to ask whether the effect concerned is caused by the project; for both upstream and downstream emissions.

“This is a question of law thus failure to consider the question and incorrect application of the tests amount to an error of law,” Mr White said.

“Note that it is irrelevant that impacts might occur far away from the project, in unknown locations, or involve intermediate activities outwith the control of the developer – these factors merely indicate that the effects are indirect.”

He said it was not legally sufficient for the council to scope out the operational waste solely on the grounds that the pig manure will be exchanged with local farmers as part of a ‘muck for straw arrangement' and for the poultry waste to be moved off site to a renewable energy facility.

Planners are expected to consider the application this autumn. The council has been contacted for comment.

Mark Smulian