UK looks to relax planning rules for factory farms after industry lobbying

Exclusive: documents chronicle years-long campaign to make it easier to build intensive livestock units

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

Documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act show that proposed changes to the national planning policy framework (NPPF) were discussed by ministers and officials in response to concerns of the country’s leading chicken producers, who have been lobbying on the issue for at least two years.

The British Poultry Council (BPC), which represents the sector, toldthe farming minister Angela Eagle last autumn: “Access to more growing space is the number one priority for the poultry meat sector.”

In its submission to the government’s farm profitability review last summer, it said: “The need for a solution – either through planning reform or land-use policy – and the urgency of that need dwarfs all other issues currently facing us.”