An international poultry breeder wants to build a second chicken farm in rural Perthshire, despite more than 200 objections to an ongoing proposal.
Aviagen Ltd has submitted plans to Perth and Kinross Council for a 16,000 bird industrial poultry unit (IPU) between Crieff and Auchterarder.
The company also has an application sitting with the local authority for a 26,000 bird chicken farm at Murthly which has sparked fury among village residents.
The latest proposal would see 4,000 birds kept in four sheds on land at Kinkell Bridge near the road connecting the two towns.
The farm would be built on part of a former poultry unit but three disused sheds would be demolished and replaced by new structures.
The application has yet to receive any objections however 247 people have lodged complaints about Aviagen’s other proposal for a farm 20 miles to the north in Murthly.
Residents in Murthly have also written to the Scottish Government and Perth and Kinross Council asking for a six month moratorium to be placed on new IPU’s being built anywhere in the country.
Critics have pointed to a scientific study that has emerged from 2017 linking the IPUs to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).
The report conducted by Utrecht University in The Netherlands found that living with 1.15km of a poultry farm led to an 11% increase in risk of contracting CAP.
In March last year, protesters took to the streets after Perth and Kinross Council signed off on an egg farm housing 32,000 hens on the edge of Ardler.
Angry residents accused the local authority of not caring about locals’ health.
In 2016, controversial plans to build a £6 million pedigree chicken farm at Bankfoot were approved by Perth and Kinross Council despite a backlash from people living close to the site.
Among the opponents was Sir David Carter, who was the Queen’s surgeon in Scotland and regularly advised the government on public health issues.
He said the chicken farm could put residents at risk from serious lung conditions.
Aviagen has always maintained that their buildings are “state-of-the art” and claimed in the Crieff application the sheds were for a “pedigree breeder laying farm”.
