River campaigners head to High Court over chicken factory farm ‘chaos’

River campaigners are in Cardiff’s High Court this week challenging Shropshire Council over the expansion of an industrial-scale poultry unit in the River Severn catchment.

The legal action targets a proposed 200,000-bird facility near Shrewsbury—part of what River Action had described as a “reckless and unsustainable” surge in intensive factory farming across the region.

This case has the potential to set an important precedent for local authorities across the UK by ensuring that cumulative environmental impacts—where multiple activities combine to significantly harm the environment over time (ecological death by hundreds of thousands of chickens)—are properly assessed.

Campaigners aim to raise the bar on what planning authorities must consider before approving such developments, hoping to halt unlawful and damaging intensive farming in its tracks.

The judicial review, being heard at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, is supported and funded by environmental charity River Action and brought by Dr Alison Caffyn, a River Action advisory board member and local campaigner.

Peaceful protest

Dr Caffyn said: “There are now nearly 65 chickens for every person in Shropshire – and the council is allowing even more. We believe huge volumes of chicken muck are leaching into our rivers. They need to call a halt to it.”

To coincide with the start of the two-day hearing, campaigners staged a peaceful protest outside the court. They were joined by the Goddess of the Wye—a striking 10-foot puppet symbolising the movement to save Britain’s rivers from pollution.

Protesters wore chicken masks, held placards reading ‘choked by chickens’, and unfurled a banner declaring ‘Factory farms are killing our rivers’. The visually powerful demonstration drew attention to the escalating ecological crisis in the UK’s river catchments, attributed to unchecked industrial-scale farming.

Legal case

The case challenges the lawfulness of Shropshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for another intensive poultry unit.

The High Court is considering the following arguments:

• Ground 1: The council failed to fully and lawfully assess the environmental impacts of the development, particularly the effects of spreading manure on land.

• Ground 2: The council acted unlawfully by imposing a condition that did not prevent manure spreading, thus failing to address environmental concerns it had itself identified.

• Grounds 3 and 4: The council failed to lawfully assess the development before granting permission by (i) relying on thresholds to judge impact significance, (ii) not conducting a proper in-combination (cumulative) assessment, and (iii) assuming, incorrectly, that air scrubbers would always be operational as a mitigation measure.

Campaigners called for the council’s decision to be declared unlawful and quashed.

Charles Watson, Chair and Founder of River Action, commented: “Like some ghastly car crash in slow motion we’re watching the River Severn suffer the same fate as the Wye. Shropshire Council is rubber-stamping massive chicken factory farms without considering the potentially horrific cumulative environmental impact.

“These farms are spreading like a septic rash across the catchment, with no credible plan to deal with their toxic manure. If we don’t stop this now, we risk losing yet another iconic British river.”

Ricardo Gama, solicitor at Leigh Day, the firm representing Dr Caffyn, added: “This case is pivotal in defining how planning authorities should assess intensive agricultural applications. Our client believes that failures to properly consider the cumulative waste impacts of these developments have already left the Wye and Severn river catchments overwhelmed.”

Landmark ruling

This hearing follows last month’s landmark judgment in National Farmers Union v Herefordshire County Council, with the High Court declaring farming manure as waste with huge implications for handling manure on farms everywhere – a major win in the fight against harmful agricultural practices.

It also follows the rejection of a megafarm in Methwold, Norfolk earlier this month due to environmental concerns.

These decisions should lead to tighter regulation, better planning and improvements to river health across the country. Today’s case is the next important step in the fight to clean up the UK’s severely polluted rivers.

In May 2024, Shropshire Council approved LJ Cooke & Son’s application for an intensive poultry production unit at Felton Butler, northwest of Shrewsbury. The unit was planned to house 200,000 birds and sits adjacent to other large-scale poultry facilities. River Action argued that allowing clusters of such units posed serious risks to river ecosystems.

Campaigners warned the River Severn could soon follow the River Wye—once one of Britain’s most celebrated rivers—now heavily polluted by phosphate runoff, allegedly linked to poultry farming. Without urgent legal and regulatory changes, they argued, another vital river system might be lost.