lanning permission is regularly cited as the single biggest barrier to UK pig industry growth – and the delivery of welfare and sustainability goals.
Producers are battling with increased planning costs and lengthy processes, while outcomes can be uncertain and inconsistent – and, if that was not enough, farm applications are increasingly being targeted by well-financed and organised campaign groups determined to scupper them.
While no one disputes the need for a robust planning process that fairly addresses local issues, the pig sector needs reform to deliver more balance and streamline the system, particularly as the industry comes under pressure to transition to flexible farrowing systems and alternatives to carbon dioxide in abattoirs, both of which will require new buildings and conversions.
“We are finding that the planning process is becoming more unpredictable,” said Andy Hall, managing director at pig housing specialist AM Warkup, speaking after the NPA’s latest Pig Industry Group meeting, where planning barriers were a running theme.
“Clients and their agents are having to provide more information, reports and surveys to the planners. Even when these are all completed, there are still no guarantees that the application will be approved. These difficulties are preventing farmers from expanding or maintaining their businesses.”
He highlighted the irony that animal welfare and environmental campaign groups are helping to prevent ‘modern, energy-efficient, higher-welfare buildings being built to replace old, outdated buildings’.
“We need to improve the planning system to deliver on the industry’s welfare and sustainability goals,” he said.
Reforms
The good news is that the government has acknowledged the flaws in the farm planning process and has promised to make improvements as part of two much wider policy developments.
In December, Defra published a consultation, which closed in March, on changes to its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). While the main focus was paving the way for hundreds of thousands of new homes to be built, the proposals included supporting business growth by giving ‘substantial weight’ to the economic benefits of proposals that allow businesses to ‘invest, expand and adapt’.
This includes ‘benefits for domestic food production, animal welfare and the environment that can be demonstrated through proposals for development for farm and agricultural modernisation’.
The National Land Use Framework, published in March, is an even broader document setting out a plan to deliver new homes, nature restoration, clean energy and food security through more efficient use of land.
Based on ‘the most advanced land use analysis ever undertaken’, it makes a long-term commitment to maintaining food production in England, while ‘supporting farmers to diversify and remain profitable in the face of extreme weather and market shocks’. This includes developing sector growth plans, beginning with horticulture and poultry, ‘to help improve productivity, profitability and resilience’.
Whether the good intentions contained within these substantial policy initiatives ultimately deliver benefits for farming against potentially competing objectives remains to be seen.
NPA response
In its response to the NPPF consultation, the NPA ‘wholeheartedly agrees’ with the overarching aim of removing planning barriers on proposed farm developments.
“It is becoming increasingly common for the primary barrier to investing in on-farm infrastructure to improve animal health and welfare and environmental impact to be the difficulty in obtaining the necessary planning permission,” the document states.
It stressed that ‘substantial weight should be given by the decision-maker to benefits relating to domestic food production, animal welfare and the environment’, something that has all too evidently been missing up to this point.
On the detail, the NPA response also:
- Backs a proposal that explicitly promotes development that enables improved accommodation for livestock.
- Agrees that biodiversity net gain offers an important contribution to nature recovery, but stresses that it needs to be applied in a more proportionate and consistent manner across local planning authorities. The NPA suggests minor agricultural developments should be made exempt – at a minimum, the requirement should be limited to major applications (larger than 1,000sq m), rather than all full applications.
- Calls for an extension in the permitted development rights allowance from 1,000sq m for livestock agricultural buildings, which would ‘significantly enable rural improvement with regard to welfare and environmental policy’.
- Seeks clarity on the management of agricultural manure and slurry, including explicitly extricating the management of agricultural wastes from the planning system, as these activities are already effectively controlled via existing legislation.
Campaign group influence
Even if the government does reform and tweak planning policy in a helpful way, this would still need to translate to local planning committees where decisions are made.
One of farmers’ biggest complaints is about the inconsistency in the system and local planning decisions being based on factors that should not be relevant.
It is here that the growing influence of national campaign groups such as Communities Against Factory Farming (CAFF) and smaller local groups can be telling. CAFF explains that it is ‘on a mission to end factory farming in Britain’ and that it exists to ‘support local residents to oppose the expansion of factory farming to protect people, the environment, animals and our climate’.
Its website lists more than 40 current and historic campaigns targeting specific farm applications, highlighting how to complain, providing online objections templates and, in some cases, even suggesting using an artificial intelligence tool to create an objection.
Most of these relate to poultry, but there are six pig applications – five farms and Pilgrim’s Europe’s application to expand Westerleigh abattoir, near Bristol.
The farms include Cranswick’s Cherry Tree Farm, in Norfolk, which was refused retrospective planning permission by Breckland Council in November for sheds built in 2021. CAFF is now urging supporters to donate towards its legal costs associated with Cranswick’s appeal against the decision.
Cranswick was the subject of an even bigger campaign against its application to house 14,000 pigs and 714,000 chickens in ‘high-welfare, sustainable’ systems in Methwold and Feltwell, in Norfolk.
King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council Planning Committee unanimously rejected the application in April 2025 after a report by planning officers concluded that the ‘public benefits of the development as proposed are outweighed by the potential environmental impacts’.
The application, which was vigorously opposed by various NGOs and campaign groups, received more than 15,000 objections – according to Cranswick’s own analysis, more than 90% of them came from outside the local area, including from Rome, Lisbon, Calgary and California.
‘Disproportionate impact’
In its response to the NPPF consultation, the NPA calls on the government to address the ‘sometimes disproportionate’ effect of national campaign groups.
“The pig sector is increasingly encountering issues regarding local residents objecting to ‘factory farming’, often driven by animal rights organisations/activists who attempt not only to discredit applicants, but to incite fear and hostility among residents and disrupt the entire planning process,” it said.
The NPA said the planning process is quite rightly designed to allow local residents’ concerns to be fairly represented and considered. But it added that, as a result of the campaigns, the inclusion of pigs in planning application often prompts a different approach in comparison to other types of application, increasing the cost and burden of what is required and causing delays.
Evidence-based decisions
Tony Goodger, the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers’ head of marketing and communications, addressed the issue in the Tribune in March.
He highlighted the example of a pig unit application that has attracted more than 300 objections – much of it drummed up by CAFF’s online campaign – with many, again, from ‘far beyond the local area, including Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and US’.
He pointed out that the application includes supportive technical reports covering odour, ammonia emissions, water protection and waste management, and lists measures designed to protect surrounding land and water.
“Public concern about animal welfare and environmental impact is legitimate and important. But planning decisions should ultimately be based on evidence and on the realities of farming on the ground,” he said.
The applicant added: “We understand why people care about how food is produced. This is our livelihood and our land, and we have a responsibility to look after both.
“What can be frustrating is when decisions about local farms are influenced by people who may live hundreds or even thousands of miles away and don’t know the farm or the area. We are simply trying to run a responsible, regulated farming business and produce food in a way that is sustainable for the future.”