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More than 51 million chickens are being industrially farmed in the river valleys of the Severn and Wye – the equivalent of 79 chickens for every person in the region, according to new figures.
The exponential rise in large intensive poultry units (IPUs) in the valleys is a key driver of river pollution. Chicken dropping contains more phosphates – which starve fish and river plants of oxygen – than any other animal manure.
The figures can be revealed by the Guardian as campaigners take a judicial review in court to try to stop the development of another IPU that has been granted planning permission in Shropshire. The proposed unit would house nearly 250,000 chickens.
The Wye and Severn rivers run partially through the Shropshire, Herefordshire or Powys local authority areas. None of the three councils keep data on the total numbers of industrial chicken units that have been granted planning permission in their area.
Data shared with the Guardian by activists who have scoured local planning applications and used satellite imagery reveals the growing scale of intensive chicken farming across the three counties.
In the last five years the number of chickens reared for eggs or meat in intensive units has risen from an estimated 46 million to more than 51 million at any one time, according to Christine Hugh-Jones, of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW), and Dr Alison Caffyn, an academic who lives in Shropshire. Caffyn is a board member for the campaign group River Action and is leading the judicial review against the new IPU.
Shropshire is home to more than 20 million industrially farmed chickens at any one time, one of the densest concentrations of IPUs in Europe.
Industrial poultry units hold anything from 40,000 to more than 600,000 birds at any one time. Some contain more than a million birds. The nutrient runoff is a significant pollutant in rivers.
Intensive poultry farming is already blamed for devastating the River Wye, a site of special scientific interest. Its ecological status was downgraded last year by Natural England from “unfavourable – recovering” to “unfavourable – declining” as a result of pollution from phosphates, nitrates and ammonia from intensive farming.
Caffyn will argue in the high court that the further spread of industrial-scale poultry farming will inflict similar ecological disaster on the River Severn as that suffered by the Wye, if the spread of IPUs is not stopped. She points out that the location of the proposed unit in Shropshire is just 400 metres from an existing one, which appears to be in breach of government guidelines that says IPUs should not be built within 3km (1.9 miles) of each other because of the biosecurity risks of bird flu spreading between sites. Shropshire council approved the planning permission after the applicants promised they would transfer the manure to a third party anaerobic digestion unit.
The Environment Agency, which carries out desk-based assessments, approved a permit for the unit despite rising public concern about river pollution. The agency has never refused a permit for an IPU in the county, Caffyn said.
Georgie Hyde, the West Midlands environment and land use adviser to the National Farmers’ Union, said: “Shropshire farmers and growers care passionately about our rivers and recognise their businesses have a clear role to play, alongside producing food, in improving water quality … The industry can and wants to do more.”
Data gathered by the Angling Trust on the Severn, shared with the Guardian, shows how the river catchment is suffering from the impact of nutrient pollution from intensive agriculture.
Water-quality monitoring tests carried out by volunteers for the non-profit over two years revealed that more than 61% of sites on the river had phosphate levels above the water framework directive upper limit. They also found that 59.6% of sites on the Severn had mean average levels of nitrates above acceptable levels.
Shropshire is the only county of the three that is still granting planning permission for IPUs. A de facto moratorium has been imposed on more IPUs in Powys, after the Welsh government put 12 planning applications for a total of 700,000 birds on hold in 2023 – five of which were for the Severn valley and seven for the Wye catchment. The Welsh Government intervened because of fears of the ecological damage to the rivers from chicken farms.
The Welsh government has yet to decide on any of the applications but said: “We are closely monitoring this situation and keeping it under consideration.”
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Herefordshire has not granted planning permission for an IPU since 2021.
Caffyn said Shropshire council did not appear to know how many birds were raised in the county and that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Agency each had wildly different numbers for IPUs and birds the units contained.
“Shropshire council is failing to assess the cumulative effects of existing and proposed intensive poultry units. This contravenes both national planning policy and case law,” Caffyn said.
She added: “The volume of poultry manure from the over 20 million birds in the county must be immense … There appears to be limited work under way to assess the impacts of this on the Severn catchment and the riverine environment and wildlife.”
Hugh-Jones, who is with the Brecon and Radnor branch of the CPRW, said the gathering of data on IPUs over several years provided vital evidence that the expansion of the units had to stop.
“We have long been concerned at the environmental impacts to soil and water quality and to local biodiversity of the rapid proliferation of intensive poultry units. Today 51 million birds are being held any one time in IPUs across the three counties,” she said.
Shropshire council said the matter was subject to a judicial review process. It added: “The planning application was accompanied by an environmental statement which included detailed assessments of the likely impacts of the proposal on the environment.
“Technical advice was sought from consultees including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the council’s ecology and public protection teams.”
Hyde said: “Much progress has already been made through regulation and voluntary measures such as carefully managing how much manure and fertiliser is applied to fields. The use of organic manures has always been at the heart of sustainable food production.”
She said the issue of water quality in the country’s rivers was a complex one and could not be solved overnight.
The Environment Agency said there were 82 permitted IPUs in the Wye catchment, and 103 operational permitted IPUs in Shropshire, the English side of the Severn catchment. Permits from the agency are required if the capacity of the farm is more than 40,000 poultry places.
“Intensive poultry units are subject to close regulation of their permits, and more than 12,000 farm inspections, requiring farmers to carry out over 19,000 improvement actions, have taken place since 2021,” the agency said.
