NEWLAND Parish Council are commissioning a specialist to report on what impact a turkey farm development could have on the local community in Clearwell.

The Forest Council’s planning committee has granted retrospective permission to an application to extend a turkey farm which overlooks ancient woodland and tourist attractions.

The permission, though, is subject to the completion of an appropriate assessment – which has to be agreed with Natural England – of the development.

And that has given objectors the chance to look at ways to challenge the planners’ decision.

An extraordinary parish council meeting last week discussed what action could be taken during the time that the implementation of the retrospective permission was in abeyance.

There were two retrospective applications before the planning committee, both of which were granted subject to Natural England’s green light.

One allows the poultry company to erect a control room, two feed bins, a back-up generator and two gas tanks along with the construction of a concrete apron and access road.

The other was for the erection of a building to add to other similar buildings on the site.

The new poultry building in the second application has already been built.

At the meeting, parish council clerk Mr Richard Crighton told councillors they could commission an environmental report from Stonehouse-based ecology expert Dr Stephanie Wray – at a cost of £1,500 – pay £4,000 for advice from a Queen’s Counsel barrister on whether the district authority had acted within planning law and, if the district council were found not to have behaved properly, taking the matter to judicial review, costing £15,000.

The long debate at Clearwell Memorial Hall went into detail about the ways forward but the public were very concerned about problems with air quality due to ammonia nitrate emissions and traffic issues.

Dr John Payne, whose family have owned Lambsquay Wood, just a few metres from the turkey farm, for nearly 150 years, said: “I am concerned about the difficulties in finding a solution to this and I do believe that the only way is through groups like Compassion for World Farming or something like that to get a campaign going.

“The road itself is very dangerous and, in future applications for development for the whole of this site, it is a poor site for access.”

Mr Jonathan Wright, owner of Clearwell Caves, added: “The cavern extends under the road into Clearwell and I suggested to Highways (district council highways department) that they should put a weight restriction on it.

“The engineers, when they came out, were shocked to see the supporting pillar there and they indicated they would need to do further investigations but I have not heard anything since.”

And Elaine Morman, who runs the Secret Forest tourist attraction is near the poultry business, said she was mystified why council planning enforcement officers were not called out to the farm as it was reported to them when it was being built.

“There was noise coming from the development area, with lorries going there, and nothing was done about it,” she said.

“As far as I am aware, it was reported to them several times over a period of time.

“And the smell is almost constant at the Secret Forest. I am in it all day and it is quite sickly. By the end of the day, I feel quite sick. It is horrendous and I am trying to run a tourist business.”

After this and other evidence, parish councillors decided to ask Dr Wray for an environmental report on the issues and also voted in favour of making a Freedom of Information request to find out when the planning department at the district council knew about the non-permitted building being erected and when they first visited the site.

However, the parish council rejected asking for help from a QC barrister, with concerns that it would be a waste of their money to get advice on possible planning breaches when none, probably, existed.