Foston Factory Farm

Factory Pig Farm Proposal in Foston, Derbyshire

UK Company, Midland Pig Producers (MPP) is applying (application CW9/0311/174) to build an indoor pig factory farm on a green field site near the village of Foston, Derbyshire. If the plans are approved it would be one of the largest factory farms in the UK, containing 2,500 mother pigs (sows) and around 25,000 pigs, with 1,000 going for slaughter each week.

Register your Objection with Derbyshire County Council

If you don’t want to see massive US-scale pig factories entering the UK, then make your voice heard by registering your opposition directly to the planners on the Derbyshire County Council website. You can also make your voice heard through our online petition here.

Please help us reach our target of 25,000 objections – that’s one objection for every pig to be confined inside this factory farm. Organisations including Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, Viva and Peta and high profile supporters including Dominic West, Michael Mansfield QC, Peter Tatchell, Pauline Quirk, Lucy Pargeter, Roxanne Ghawam-Shahidi and Charley Webb have already shown their support. GO

Resources:

Pig Business example objection [PDF, 21 KB]
South Derbyshire District Council objection [PDF, 120 KB]
Full objection report [PDF, 5.4 MB]
Posters [PDF, 2.2 MB]
Flyer [PDF, 271 KB]

Press Releases:

Pig development could breach local residents’ human rights (10th February, 2012)
Re: South Derbyshire District Council decision (2nd November, 2011)
Statement re: proposed mega pig factory farm in Foston, Derbyshire (28th October, 2011)
Stuffed! (22 September, 2011)
Actor Dominic West joins campaigners opposing huge pig factory proposal in Derbyshire (15 June, 2011)
The Dark Side of Farming: help stop the introduction of a huge pig factory in Derbyshire (13 June, 2011)

The Facts

This site is only 130 metres from a women’s prison and natal unit as well as other residential buildings (annotated aerial view).

Midland Pig Producers have been claiming 97% efficiency for the removal of odour and ammonia from the slurry, but verification tests showed that fine particle filtration was only 73% efficient at times. (Source p.23)

Even if claims to stop up to 80% of odour, 90% of ammonia and 90% of germs and endotoxins are accurate it means that odours of the equivalent of 5,000 pigs, and germs and endotoxins equivalent to that of 2,500 pigs would be emitted.

In their statement to Derbyshire County Council, the Health Protection Agency states: ‘Recent research has found that those living up to 150m downwind of an intensive farming installation could be at risk of adverse human health effects associated with exposure to multi- drug resistant organisms’. (Source p.27 The prison is only 130 metres from the site).

The alleged sustainability of the development is based on the anaerobic digestor which requires 45,000 tonnes of waste to be driven to the site annually by HGVs, requiring 84 lorry movements per week.

There has been overwhelming local opposition, with over 13,000 objections.

GGD Nederlands, the umbrella organisation which advises and informs over 400 Municipal Health Services in Holland, has advised that intensive farms should not be built closer than 250 metres from receptors, regardless of whether they will provide mitigating measures such as filtration and a biodigester.

South Derbyshire District Council Meeting, 1st November 2011

On 1^st November 2011 South Derbyshire District Council voted unanimously to oppose the proposal. One councillor called the scheme ‘obnoxious’ and we were told that the planning consultant’s report that we commissioned was instrumental in this decision. We hope that the County Council will follow their recommendation and refuse to open the floodgates to mega pig farming in the UK. We need to keep up the pressure so please submit an objection to the county council if you have not yet done so and ask others to do the same.

Government health agency agrees mega-farms are a health risk
Wired 4th November 2011
Blow for mega pig-farm as plans fail to gain council approval
The Guardian 2nd November 2011
Press Release
Pig Business 2nd November 2011

The Dark Side of Factory Farming Film (19m)

Watch our new short film that summarises the impacts of the overuse of antibiotics and antimicrobials in factory farming and the potential consequences for human health:

Celebrity Endorsement

Pauline Quirke, previously of hit BBC show Birds of a Feather, Lucy Pargeter, Roxanne Ghawam-Shahidi and Charley Webb, have now joined star of The Wire Dominic West in opposing the plans from Midland Pig Producers.

On Wednesday 15th June we visited the proposed factory farm site with actor Dominic West, star of TV police drama The Wire and anti mega-farm activist.

This is what he said:

“The Foston proposal signals a fundamental shift in British farming towards the US and EU system of giant corporate-owned factories confining thousands of pigs in buildings and feeding them antibiotics to keep them alive.”

“Treating pigs as industrial production units on such an intensive level is not only shameful but also unsustainable. It is the antithesis of what people want the British countryside and farming to be and it poses a potential threat to human health and the environment, as outlined in the Soil Association’s and The Environment Agency’s objections to this development.”