It’s time to stop another megafarm! We succeeded in Norfolk, where over 15,000 of us raised our voices to stop a megafarm planning application over climate grounds. Now, our fight comes to Lincolnshire.
Have your say: You can submit an objection in just two minutes. Copy and paste the text below into the council’s planning portal, or add your own words for more impact:
“This planning application’s failure to adequately assess direct and indirect climate impacts, alongside its failure to comprehensively address waste disposal, is deeply concerning and likely to be legally deficient. I echo all the concerns listed in objections raised by Foodrise and Sustain. I therefore object to this development.”
South Holland District Council is currently considering an application from Holbeach Poultry Ltd to build a vast new chicken megafarm in Lincolnshire that would produce and export over 3.5 million chickens every year.
Environmental organisations including Sustain, Foodrise, Compassion in World Farming UK, River Action, Friends of the Earth, The Wildlife Trusts, and the Agtivist Agency have all warned the council that the plans fail to properly set out their likely environmental and health impacts. This is despite legal precedent requiring this information, and evidence of the significant environmental and health harm from such facilities.
Local residents are also raising the alarm that Lincolnshire is at risk of becoming the UK’s mega-farm capital – already home to an estimated 192 intensive livestock units, with a further seven applications currently being processed by Lincolnshire councils in 2025 alone.
Kev Burn, coordinator of the Holbeach Intensive Poultry farm unit said:
“Lincolnshire is already the home to more intensive poultry farms than any other area. Residents living close to the existing nearby poultry farms tell us that the noise, odour and dust created during the cleaning phase is unbearable for days at time, rendering their outdoor space unusable and having to keep windows and doors closed at times during ever increasingly hot summers.
A sustainable food system that supports health and wellbeing will never be achieved while we increasingly support intensive animal farming. We have to change course, for our health, for our environment and of course, for the animals who bear the brunt of needless suffering.”
Natasha Hurley, Deputy Director at Foodrise, added:
"These facilities are nothing more than intensive factory farms slaughtering millions of animals a year, causing enormous climate and environmental harm in the process. Approving intensive factory farms like this is madness. We urge South Holland District Council to reject this planning application."
Earlier this year, Sustain and Foodrise worked with a local community in Norfolk to successfully block an application for a megafarm in Norfolk on the same grounds, now local campaigners in Lincolnshire hope that public pressure can make the difference again.
Have your say: You can submit an objection in just two minutes. Copy and paste the text below into the council’s planning portal, or add your own words for more impact:
“This planning application’s failure to adequately assess direct and indirect climate impacts, alongside its failure to comprehensively address waste disposal, is deeply concerning and likely to be legally deficient. I echo all the concerns listed in objections raised by Foodrise and Sustain. I therefore object to this development.”
Intensive chicken shed in Suffolk. Credit: Animal Justice
Food for the Planet: Helping local authorities to tackle the climate and nature emergency through food.
