Welsh Government to consider calling in Powys Council planning approval for poultry farm in River Wye catchment

The Welsh Government has temporarily blocked Powys County Council's decision to grant planning permission for the expansion of a poultry farm in the River Wye catchment area which was at the centre of a series of failed judicial review challenges last year.

In a letter to the local authority, the Welsh Government's Head of Planning Decisions, Lewis Thomas, said the Welsh Government had been asked to call in the application using powers set out in Section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

As a result, the council is unable to grant planning permission for the application without the prior authorisation of Welsh Ministers.

Consideration will now be given to whether or not the application should be referred to the Welsh Ministers for their determination.

Under the plan approved by Powys in march of last year, the farm in the River Wye catchment area will double in size from 90,000 birds to 180,000.

Concerns about the environmental impact of the planning approval were first raised in the spring of 2022 by the legal campaign group Fish Legal.

The group launched a judicial review challenge in April alleging that the council had not assessed the effect of the additional poultry manure that will make its way into the River Wye.

However, Fish Legal dropped its legal challenge after its judicial review application was dismissed by the High Court and later the Court of Appeal.

In the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Lewison found that the local authority had carried out an appropriate assessment and that, "taken as a whole", the grounds of challenge were not arguable.

The news comes as a separate legal challenge of Herefordshire Council's approval of a farm's expansion near the River Wye catchment could be heard by the Supreme Court.  

The appellant has applied to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision to dismiss his case.

Adam Carey