Showjumper granted planning permission for barn to store horse manure

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

An international showjumper who represents Great Britain has been granted permission for an 18 metre long barn to store her horses’ manure. 

Professional event rider Charlotte Agnew moved her business from Gloucestershire to Monmouthshire in 2022, when she bought Llan Farm, around five miles from Monmouth, to train her own and other horses for dressage competitions. 

The county council gave planning permission for equestrian use of the land and to relocate and convert an existing agricultural barn to a giant ‘American barn’ with 16 stables.   

It had been intended a muck trailer would be used to store manure and a local farmer would collect it and store it before spreading it on the ground to be used as fertiliser. 

Beneficial

Work on the approved buildings has nearly been completed and a statement submitted as part of the application for the new barn states “a covered and fully enclosed manure storage building would be beneficial”. 

The 9.2m wide barn, that will be 18.3m long and 4.3m high to its ridge, will allow for at least five to six months of storage over the winter months ready to be spread outside of the closed periods of spreading, which are October to January. 

The American barn, that has underfloor heating, houses “expensive, in training and experienced competition horses, as well as breeding mares, foals and young horses”.   

Storing the manure in the barn, which will have a sliding doors at its gable, or front elevation, with a natural grey cement fiber roof and Yorkshire Boarding on the walls, means the waste produced by the horses won’t have to be collected and moved from the farm at “frequent intervals”. 

Natural Resources Wales, which had approved the previous manure management plan, said it had no objections and if the waste is managed correctly it shouldn’t increase the amount of phosphorus entering the catchment of the Wye. 

A report by council planning officer David Wong stated: “The site is within the Phosphorous Sensitive Catchment Area of the River Usk Special Area of Conservation and the applicant has confirmed that there will be no increase in livestock numbers as a result of the proposed development.” 

There is no impact on residents as Ms Agnew’s home, on site, is the only neighbouring property. 

The application was submitted by Xafinity Pension Trustees Ltd of Stirling, Scotland. 

Ms Agnew, recognised by the UK World Class Programme as “a rider to support”, moved from Scotland to Gloucestershire in 2010, before moving to Monmouthshire last year.