Plans for 180,000-strong chicken farm submitted

A new £6 million chicken farm near Harper Adams University would hold 180,000 birds and be a centre for learning, according to a planning application lodged with officials in Telford.

Meese Farming of Lilleshall, has applied for permission to build four poultry units on a parcel of arable land north of Blackbrook Cottages, Edgmond, close to the specialist university.

The company already has an existing poultry unit at Deepdale Farm, Chetwynd.

Specialist agricultural planning agent Ian Pick has told Telford & Wrekin Council planners that the university has “expressed strong support for the scheme.”

“While the development is not being delivered by the University, Harper Adams has expressed strong support for the scheme, recognising its significant value as a teaching and research resource for both agricultural and veterinary students.

“The proposal includes a dedicated teaching facility and a viewing area, enabling students to engage with the latest practices and technologies in the poultry sector.”

It will also be accessible to a wider range of educational institutions, offering “valuable learning opportunities for students from other schools, colleges, and universities.”

The four proposed poultry houses would each have a capacity of 45,000 birds, with the total population of the site extending to 180,000 birds.

They would be used for the 38-day rearing of broiler chickens from day old chicks to finished table weight.

Planning documents reveal that the proposed development involves an investment in buildings and infrastructure by the applicants of approximately £6million. Once up and running, it would employ two people.

The planning agent says the development will operate in line with the “Better Chicken Commitment” and adopt a higher welfare, lower stocking density model that goes beyond standard industry practice.

It means that the birds are given 21 per cent more space in the barns. But that means that across the industry 21 per cent more poultry houses are required in order to continue production are current levels.

“It is now of strategic importance for UK food security that more poultry houses are developed to enable the adoption of the higher welfare standard, without creating a major shortage of chicken which will otherwise be filled by imports of chicken from abroad which are produced under lower standards of animal welfare,” says a report from agent Ian Pick.

The proposed development includes air scrubbing technology and will use poultry manure for a gasification plant which will provide renewable heat and power for the poultry unit.

The business will need to get an Environmental Permit from the Environment Agency in order to operate.

The applicants are proposing that surface water will first discharge through a piped network and through filter drains and filter strips before discharging into a storage tank, then into the existing drainage ditch to the north of the site.

The background papers with the application add that: “In order to minimise the risk of contamination to the final watercourse, it is proposed that the water drains via a sealed drainage network and then through filter drains and filter strips before discharge to the final effluent location.”

A period of public consultation has opened with the full details on the Telford & Wrekin Council planning portal, with the reference TWC/2025/0423