Victory: ‘Chicken City’ Rejection Upheld By Planning Inspectorate

For Immediate Release:

14 January 2015

Contact:

Hannah Levitt +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

VICTORY: ‘CHICKEN CITY’ REJECTION UPHELD BY PLANNING INSPECTORATE

Poultry Farm Planning Appeal Dismissed Following Almost 30,000 Objections From PETA Supporters

Wychavon, Worcestershire – After a campaign that included tens of thousands of objections from supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Planning Inspectorate this week upheld the decision of Wychavon District Council, which voted unanimously to refuse permission for an intensive broiler chicken farm expansion in Upton Snodsbury. The proposed facility, which would have confined 160,000 chickens at any single time to filthy, crowded sheds, earning it the nickname “Chicken City”, was previously rejected by the council by a vote of 13 to 0 – a decision that was met with a round of applause.

“The Planning Inspectorate has done the right thing for residents and animals”, says PETA UK Director Mimi Bekhechi. “Chickens are social animals who are as intelligent as cats and dogs and like to spend their days together taking dust baths, roosting in trees and lying in the sun, all of which are denied them when they are forced to live out their shortened lives on cramped, filthy factory farms.”

Before the decision, PETA fired off a letter to the Planning Inspectorate – complete with hundreds of signatures from local residents – urging it to reject Davies’ application. In the letter, which followed the delivery of 26,000 petition signatures to Wychavon District  Council earlier in 2014, PETA noted that in addition to being a living nightmare for animals, factory farms have a severely detrimental effect on the environment, both locally and nationally. It is now universally recognised that factory farms are among the main contributors to the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change.

On chicken farms, inquisitive, highly social birds are forced to spend their lives in sheds that stink of ammonia with tens of thousands of other birds. Chickens are dosed with antibiotics to fight disease and bred to grow so large so fast that many of them become crippled under their own weight and experience organ failure. Severe crowding and often filthy conditions leave chickens highly susceptible to chronic respiratory diseases. They are killed for their flesh at 42 days old, when they reach “slaughter weight”.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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