UK Government Moves to Ease Planning Restrictions for Intensive Poultry Farms Amid Industry Lobbying

Ministers are rewriting planning rules to make it easier to approve intensive livestock farms, despite ongoing concerns about water pollution, air quality and local opposition.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) have been discussed in response to lobbying by the country’s leading chicken producers for at least two years.

The British Poultry Council (BPC) told farming minister Angela Eagle last autumn that “access to more growing space is the number one priority for the poultry meat sector.”

In a submission to the government’s farm profitability review, the BPC argued that the need for a solution—whether through planning reform or land‑use policy—“dwarfs all other issues currently facing us.”

Ahead of a January round‑table with Eagle, the BPC urged the government to “develop national planning direction and oversight for food production … to safeguard the UK’s long‑term food security.”

Eagle responded that the government has “announced proposals to reform the planning system to more quickly unlock food and farming infrastructure,” emphasizing that “planning should enable ambition, not stifle it.”

Her briefing notes directly linked the proposed changes to industry lobbying, describing planning reform as one of the sector’s “biggest asks” and noting that the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are working to “find solutions to planning barriers to poultry sheds and other infrastructure necessary for food production.”

The draft NPPF includes several measures that could ease approval of new intensive livestock developments: a higher threshold for refusing applications on environmental grounds, reduced scope for local authorities to adopt tougher rules, greater weight given to “domestic food production,” and a new emphasis on “better accommodation for livestock.”

The industry says it needs extra space to house chickens because of voluntary commitments to lower stocking density. Critics point out that these welfare commitments are not legally binding and that planning conditions do not guarantee long‑term compliance. Recent withdrawals by restaurant chains from the Better Chicken Commitment underscore the controversy.

Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the BPC, said the reforms are needed to accommodate welfare improvements rather than to expand production, noting a voluntary reduction in stocking density from 38 kg to 30 kg per square metre.

Griffiths warned that failing to support domestic production could increase imports, and the BPC has called for food production to be classified as “critical national infrastructure.”

Prof. Paul Behrens of the University of Oxford countered that the food‑security case for intensive poultry is “illusory” because the sector depends on imported feed and vitamins and is vulnerable to disease outbreaks such as avian flu.

Opposition to poultry megafarms is organised, with local residents raising concerns over water pollution, air quality and the climate crisis. The Environment Agency estimates agriculture accounts for roughly 70 % of nitrate and 25‑30 % of phosphorus pollution in UK waterways, and runoff from intensive poultry units contributes to that burden.

Last year, Norfolk councillors rejected Cranswick’s plan for a 900,000‑bird chicken farm after the company failed to demonstrate that the development would not cause “significant adverse effects on protected sites.”

The BPC has also urged early intervention by the Planning Inspectorate to minimise delays, arguing that centralised oversight would bring objectivity to a system where “naysayers, particularly via social media, have a disproportionate sway in the decision‑making process.”

Campaign group Communities Against Factory Farming warned that the proposed regime “risks embedding decades of industrial livestock land use in rural and green‑belt locations without adequate scrutiny,” giving “substantial weight” to the economic benefits of intensification.

A government spokesperson rejected claims that the NPPF proposals are driven by lobbying, stating that they have been carefully considered to balance sector support with broader priorities such as food security and environmental protection.