Plan for Shropshire chicken farm with 180,000 birds to provide poo-power to National Grid met with objections

The site at Barnes Farm, at Rowton, between Shrewsbury and Newport, has an anaerobic digester which could be used to turn nearly 2,000 tonnes of chicken manure into gas for the National Grid.

Drainage experts at Telford & Wrekin Council have asked farm business SV Taylor and Partners to explain how it would stop water finding its way from Barnes Farm to the River Tern before it lifts its objections.

“The principle of foul and surface water drainage has not been satisfactorily established,” say drainage experts at the council.

They have asked for proof of how dirty water will be dealt with and a “drawing showing the full discharge route to the River Tern”.

“To remove the objections, we require these to be answered satisfactorily, and updated documents be published,” the council experts have told the applicants.

Planning agent Ian Pick, of Harrison Pick, in Driffield, Yorkshire, has told planners via documents submitted to Telford & Wrekin Council’s planning website that the arable and dairy business is looking to further diversity.

It already has a piece of kit that converts manure to gas.

Mr Pick says that the decision to diversify the business into poultry production has “stemmed from the financial volatility of the dairy and arable sectors within which the business currently operates.

This, he says, has been combined with the loss of the single farm payment agricultural subsidy which is being phased out by the UK Government following Brexit.

The farming business extends to 950 acres and is operated as a mixed dairy and arable business.

It also has a 5MW Anaerobic Digester (AD) which supplies gas to the national grid.

1,984 tonnes of chicken manure

The proposal includes processing an estimated 1,984 tonnes of chicken manure through the onsite AD plant.

The plan involves the building of four poultry houses with associated feed bins, dirty water tanks, hardstandings, water tank, generator, plant room, gate house, car parking and attenuation pond.

It would be used for rearing of broilers from day-old chicks “through to finished table weight”.

Each poultry house would accommodate 45,000 birds with a total site capacity of 180,000 birds.

The chicks are placed within the building as day-old birds and reared within the building for 38 days, following which they are ‘manually caught’ and transported live to the ‘processers’.

Background information lodged with planners predicts that odour will occasionally be perceived locations at the closest odour sensitive receptors.

But they say this will not be at a level which would normally be considered problematic.

The plan is open for public comments on the Telford & Wrekin Council website with the reference number TWC/2025/0077.