'Super dairy' plans resubmitted

A planning application for a 'super dairy' has been resubmitted
12 April 2012

A planning application for a controversial "super dairy" has been resubmitted - but the farmers behind the scheme have more than halved the number of cows they plan to have on the farm.

The original plans for the UK's largest dairy farm with 8,100 cows on a single site at Nocton Heath, Lincolnshire, provoked an angry response, with some opponents labelling it "the equivalent of battery chicken farms for cows".

The application was withdrawn earlier this year, but the two farmers proposing the scheme said they had listened to concerns about animal welfare and the environmental impact of the scheme, and were now resubmitting the plans.

The application was resubmitted to North Kesteven District Council, and a 13-14 week consultation will be held.

The farmers, who each farm herds of 2,000 cows, said they had scaled back the plans to 3,770 cows which would now have access to outdoor paddocks during good weather in the summer.

But Peter Willes, who farms in Devon, said that if the farm was successful and they could demonstrate the system worked, they would consider expanding it to the levels of the original plans.

He insisted the £34 million farm would be sustainable, create 60 jobs, produce renewable energy to power 830 homes and fertiliser from the slurry produced by the cows, and have a low carbon footprint as the animal feed would be grown locally.

And he said the new planning application had answered concerns about animal welfare, including introducing outdoor paddocks for the cows when they were in milk, and the environment, with extra steps taken to safely store and transport the waste produced by the dairy.

Under the plans, the cows would have beds of deep sand, which reduces the main health and welfare problems dairy herds suffer including lameness, and also - in a change from the original plans - be able to go outside into grass paddocks for up to seven hours a day, weather permitting.

Mr Willes said: "This is a starting step for what we originally planned, but we need to show this works first. If we can't build this farm as a shining example of how to look after cows and run a dairy farm, then we shouldn't be building it."

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