THE number of egg laying hens at a farm near Cefn Coch is set to increase by 50 per cent.

Mr S Isaac has been given planning consent to add a building which will house an extra 6,000 free range chickens on the farm west of Nant Gwyllt around 1.5 miles from the village of Cefn Coch.

He was given planning permission to build a free-range poultry unit for 12,000 hens back in July 2018.

The new building will be 44.5 metres long, 21.5metres wide and have a maximum height of 6.1 metres, this would give a floor area of 957 square metres and be built north of the existing units.

Concerns had been raised by Welsh Government environment body, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) about the extra chicken manure as well as worries over the drainage.

Powys County Council (PCC) planning officer, Luke Jones, said: “Following the submission of amended drainage plans they (NRW) have raised no objection to the proposed means of surface and dirty water disposal.

“NRW advised the use of planning controls to ensure that the manure management plan is implemented as intended by way of monitoring and reporting of manure taken offsite.

“Provided that the manure is exported from the site as predicted in the plan and the regulations now and in the future are implemented, then it is unlikely the volume of remaining manure to be spread will result in a significant impact to the local water environment.

“Officers are satisfied that the proposed development complies with the relevant policies within the Local Development Plan (LDP) and the decision is one of conditional consent.”

Dwyriw community council had been unhappy with the description of the building when the plan was submitted last year.

Dwyriw Council clerk, Sarah Yeomans said: “The council is unhappy that the description on the planning portal is for an ‘agricultural building’ when in fact the application is for a second poultry unit at this site.

“They feel this is very misleading.

“The Council would like to know why the application did not state that it was a poultry unit in the first place.”

Agent, Gerallt Davies, explains the proposal in a Design and Access statement.

Mr Davies said: “The poultry will be able to roam the land around the building.

“The existing poultry enterprise has been successful in generating another income stream for the applicant.

“Poultry egg laying is becoming an important element in Wales’ agricultural economy and the current market dictates that agriculture must adapt to meet consumer demands.”

The feed for the current 12,000-bird unit is delivered to the farm by six or eight-wheeler HGVs, (Heavy Goods Vehicle) two to three times a month and stored on site.

Eggs are collected every three days and vehicles delivering new birds arrive once every 13 months.