Residents cry fowl over intensive chicken sheds

RESIDENTS in a Northumberland Rise are campaigning against plans for new intensive chicken shed at a nearby farm.

- KRISTY DAWSON

Well House Farm, in Colwell, has applied for planning permission to build four intensive poultry unit sheds. The sheds will house 220,000 broiler chickens per cycle - around 1.7 million chickens a year. There have been more than 100 objections with concerns being raised about animal welfare, pollution, impacts on property values and bird flu.

Rachel Mellor, 57, a sales sssistant from the nearby village of Cambo, said: “If this proposed factory farm is allowed to go ahead it will cause irreparable and severe harm to the lives and the health of the men, women and children who call Colwell and the surrounding areas home. It will have a detrimental and dreadful effect on the environment and wildlife, as well as our wonderful Hallington Reservoirs Wildlife Site which is just down the road from the proposed location.

“Local businesses will suffer and property values will be affected. Residents and wildlife must be protected from the well documented and serious harms of intensive chicken farming.