Powys County Council's Planning Service has been facing difficulties due to the high volume of planning applications for poultry farms over the past decade, according to a senior manager.

During a recent meeting of the Audit and Governance committee on June 23, the council discussed measures to improve the planning service following a critical report published by Audit Wales in May.

The county has dealt with approximately 150 planning applications for both broiler and egg-laying poultry units since 2015.

Gwilym Davies, the head of planning, property, and public protection, highlighted that Powys County Council has had more "major" planning applications to handle than any other authority in Wales, except for Cardiff City Council.

Davies stated,

"Only Cardiff beat us, and it was only by one or two major applications. We've had considerably more than the norm – we do stand out in the annual Welsh Government statistics.

Major applications take a lot longer; the other issue is the complexity. They are mostly chicken sheds, and they are very difficult to process – we have to rely on specialists, and even specialists have to send out for information from their specialists."

Since these applications represent significant investments for the applicants and can cost up to £150,000, Davies explained that more time is required to address any issues. Consequently, the timescales for processing applications have been extended. However, the number of poultry unit applications has now slowed down considerably.

According to Davies, this slowdown has allowed planning officers to redirect their efforts toward other applications, leading to a reduction in the backlog. Davies reported that the planning caseload has dropped from 900 to 500, and enforcement cases have decreased from 750 to 550.

Davies remarked

"It's freed up officers to do other applications and enforcement. An adverse impact is that our income has dropped by £400,000. In the last budget, the cabinet supported reducing our income target to reflect that."

This year, the Welsh Government has issued 12 holding directions, temporarily pausing the planning process for poultry unit applications. This allows the Welsh Government Minister for Climate Change, Julie James MS, to consider taking charge of the decision-making process after being requested to "call in" the application.

Source: Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter