Holly Hawker (Chippenham) 

I seem to have written lots of articles now bemoaning the planning system and have spent even more time explaining and empathising with clients who are falling victim to the illogical, time wasting and costly methods of many LPAs.

A recent oversight by Natural England really does take the biscuit however, and I thought sharing it may not only demonstrate the hopelessness of this situation, but also serve as a useful case study for others who will undoubtedly find themselves in the same situation.

I have a client who applied in January 2022 to dig two new earth banked slurry lagoons on each of his farms in Leicestershire.  The proposed siting of these lagoons fell within 5 kilometres of a SSSI and so, not surprisingly, we were asked by Natural England to produce an Air Quality Assessment for both lagoons, the bill for which was in the region of £5,000 to my client.

Despite good and clear justification that the development of the new lagoons was essential for better slurry and nutrient management, and their existing capacity was not enough, it was still determined that to have two additional lagoons would be a negative for air quality and the only way that the reports could demonstrate any kind of improvement (and therefore counter the existing objection by Natural England) was to have all four (two existing and two new) stores covered to prevent ammonia emissions.

The report was, begrudgingly, submitted as per this model, and Natural England’s objection withdrawn.

Myself and my client, waited for the permission to come through, and started thinking as to exactly how the covering of these lagoons was to practically be done, let alone how it was to be paid for!  But what choice did we have – we needed to get the planning through for the new lagoons!

However, when the planning permission was finally granted (12 months later!), there was nothing in the decision paperwork or conditions that referred to the Air Quality Assessment, and no requirement or mention of any obligation to cover any of the stores!  Whilst this is obviously a win for my client, one wonders what the point was of the very expensive Air Quality Assessment!  I can only imagine that someone in Natural England is saving money on fire starters by burning pages and pages of unnecessary reports.

For all your farm planning issues, contact Holly at hollyhawker@fcgagric.com or your local FCG Office.