The group’s comments followed a visit by BMPA CEO Nick Allen to a Kings Lynn and Norfolk Borough Council planning committee meeting on Thursday (2 April) alongside Cranswick, who were seeking approval for an application for a new pig and poultry unit.
Cranswick has had its plans to expand a farm site in Norfolk rejected by King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Council.
The manufacturer has been critical of the NGO pushback and published independent analysis which found that that more than 90% of objections to the proposals came from people who do not live in a 10km radius of the site.
Mired in red tape
According to the BMPA, the planning system that has mired the application in red tape for three years so far, halting the creation of new jobs, economic opportunities in the area.
Delays in applications such as Cranswick’s also hinder the industry’s ability to shore up Britain’s ‘increasingly precarious’ domestic food security.
“Despite the fact that the Environment Agency has approved the site to house up to 29,000 pigs, Cranswick’s proposal was only for 14,000 reared in extra space to RSPCA Assured standards,” said a BMPA spokesman.
‘Erroneous information’
“And yet the application suffered another refusal by a committee that struggled to answer simple questions about the proposal and had to be corrected over erroneous information at one point.”
Regardless of the eventual outcome, the BMPA argued that the planning process should not take as long as it did by any reasonable measure.
“Businesses that want to make new investments in British industry should not have to commit such a disproportionate amount of resource and time just to get a decision,” the spokesman continued.
“Apart from the disincentive to invest it clearly poses, this broken system is proving a huge barrier to realising the Labour Government’s goals of growth and food security.”
