Sedgeford poultry farm looks to expand after ‘successful’ first 15 months
In the 15 months since Whin Close Poultry Farm in Sedgeford became operational, around 1.5 million chickens have been reared there.
Newcome-Baker Farms, who own the site on Docking Road – which currently has four poultry sheds each holding 36,000 chicks – submitted plans last week for four more sheds.
Eight sheds had been included in their original plans, which were met with fierce opposition from some residents who started a ‘No to Poultry Factory’ campaign, but West Norfolk Council’s planning committee granted permission for the ‘first phase’ of four sheds in August 2017.
William Barber, farmer and managing director of Newcome-Baker Farms, said: “We started with eight sheds, but we halved it to give people the opportunity to see what four sheds were like.”
At the time, residents claimed the farm could put the local economy and tourism at risk, become a blot on the landscape, and create odour, noise and light pollution.
“I have lived in the village all my life and there were a lot of preconceptions about what I was going to do,” Mr Barber said.
“We have alleviated most of the concerns. If you make a list of potential threats, you might have thought one of them might happen, but none of them have.”
Mr Barber said his family have been farming in the area since the 1930s.
“We are doing our best to be good neighbours.”
When the Lynn News visited the farm earlier this week, Mr Barber said it was on its 11th ‘cycle’ of chicks, which were just over a week old.
In a bid to be “open and honest”, one barn has a viewing gallery, which has allowed them to show residents what happens at the farm.
“We have had groups in, including from the parish councils, who have come to have a look and see what we are doing,” Mr Barber added.
The chicks are hatched in Fakenham, before being brought to Whin Close, where they are kept in one of the barns for 36 days.
The sheds are kept at a steady temperature, thanks to a biomass boiler on the site.
It works by burning from previous corn crops at their nearby arable farm, which in turn is used to heat the sheds.
Poultry feed brought in from Walsingham, and water, are dispensed automatically into the barns.
“We try to use local people where we can,” Mr Barber said.
Once the chicks have been reared at the facility, they are then taken to the Banham Poultry plant in Attleborough.
For a period of about a week, the barns are empty while they are disinfected and rebedded ahead of the next ‘cycle’.
Mr Barber said the site is “all quite self-contained”, with the muck produced by the chicks going back into the land.
“It’s going very much as planned, from my point of view,” he added.
Mr Barber said “in a perfect world” the additional four sheds will be installed on the site, which is part of the former First World War airfield, as a mirror image of the current four by this time next year.
“This is going to be as big as it gets,” he added.
