General Discussion
Are you aware of the current investigation into siting a pig factory farm on the outskirts of Kenton/Starcross? Are you also aware that if this went ahead, it would put 32,000 pigs a year only 3 miles from Dawlish sea front and the likelihood of smell pollution impact this could generate? Not good, I would suggest, for inhabitants and potential visitors alike.
Info: http://www.stoppowderhampigfactory.co.uk/
Is it on his Lordship's land, beside the A379, that all those Vote Conservative posters appear at election times?
More inland than that. If you consider the A379 as one side of a triangle, the back road from Starcross to Mamhead as another and the road from Kenton, which joins the Starcross road as the third, the area under consideration is where these second two sides of the triangle join. Of course anyone who lives in Dawlish, but more inland than the sea front, is likely to be less than 3 miles from this endeavour. So should this go ahead, every time there is a Northerly wind, you would be well aware of the smell. Plenty of links from the web site quoted with details of the problems encountered in other places where similar factory farms have been established.
For those of you at the Warren, it is only 2.6 miles away, as shown by the Google maps straight line distance tool - beware of North-Westerly winds!
Will the number of people it might employ have any affect on the smell the factory might produce?
@Dave of Kenton - have you written a letter to the dawlish gazette about how it could impact on the town and the warren? if not, it might be an idea to do so.
Construction of the site is unlikely to employ any local people as they use pre-fab concrete slabs for their units. In production, again no figures have been produced but comparing with other operations (this is a highly automated operation that they usually run) we would guess maybe a dozen or so. These will probably be low-paid and again judging by other sites run by JMW, non-local, often migrant staff are the order of the day. If you Google JMW Farms you may discover other reasons why they might not be the ideal employer!
Lynne - if you follow the News & media link from our web site - http://www.stoppowderhampigfactory.co.uk/newsandmedia - you will see that the Gazette, as well as several other local & national papers have featured this story. My objective is simply to highlight, if this were to go ahead, just how close to Dawlish this would actually be.
Hi,
We live approx 1 mile from this site as the crow flies, though approx 600 metres away from an outdoor pig farm, I must say we haven't smelt anything in 6 months.
This is what I'm led to believe,
It's the urine that smells = so they have to have special tanks air purifiers
JMW usually just own the pigs not the actual farm = they contract out pig rearing
If it were a 12000 fattening unit only (3 sets a year) it would probably employ 3 physical staff for the pigs welfare, 1 maintenance person possibly 2 along with a working manager.
I would like to have included some phrases in my comments but i couldn't think of snout to say.
Maybe you could call a 'meating' you could see if it could be held at that pig farm down 'pork' Port rd.
Andy - what is being considered is a 32000 unit, 4 sets a year.
It would not be like the pig farms we currently have in the area, so you may expect a different experience in the smells department.
All I can say is don't squeal if it does go ahead and proves to be a less than beneficial contribution to our lovely environment, when you may have had the chance to challenge it!
Apparently they would not slaughter on site - suggestion is that the fattened pigs would be transported to an abattoir in South Wales - i.e. yet more traffic movements to be taken into consideration by anyone living close by and more stress for the animals.
And the best bacon sarnies come from the best reared pork.
Some direct feedback on this potential issue, from a contributor to the national newspaper article, linked above:
"Having lived for almost 2 years 'across the road' from a pig farm, housing around 3000 pigs, I can tell you the smell can be unbearable when the vents on the sheds are opened. Living in the country, you get used to farmyard smells, but NOTHING equals the smell of thousands of pigs farmed intensively."
And remember, the figure being discussed for the Powderham Pig Factory is 32000 per year.