Animal rights campaigners target Welshpool area

Animal rights campaigning organisation, PETA, has launched an advertising campaign against chicken farms in Montgomeryshire.

They said that they had targeted the area as it is seen as the “poultry capital” of Wales, due to the number of planning applications that have been approved in recent years.

They are calling on residents to stop eating meat, fish, and dairy products and embrace a vegan lifestyle and have posted adverts, like this one at Berriew Street Car Park in Welshpool.

But, the campaign has not gone down too well as PETA told the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the posters have not been be put up at billboards at Texaco petrol stations in Montgomeryshire, as the content has been deemed “inappropriate”.

Another poster that was put up at the Co-Op supermarket in Llanidloes has also been taken down.

PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner, said:  “The last thing Powys – or anywhere else – needs is more factory farms.

“Councils must reject applications for chicken prisons, which condemn animals to a lifetime of misery.

“And people who object to living next to these monstrous facilities must assume personal responsibility by leaving chicken flesh and eggs off their plates – because inhumane businesses collapse when consumers no longer support them.”

Peta believes there are an estimated 10 million chickens on just 200 farms in Powys.

Calls for a pause on Intensive Poultry Units planning applications have been made earlier this year when groups of residents from across the county joined forces to urge Powys County Council (PCC) to put a moratorium in place.

This was so that research to be done on the effects of so many chicken farms on the environment.

This call has been backed by Wales Environment Link.

Powys planners have maintained that a moratorium could not be done as it would “conflict with its statutory duty” of dealing with applications in a timely manner.

Due to the pollution of the River Wye over the summer in the south of the county, environment body, Natural Resources Wales is working on a review of nutrient levels in Welsh rivers.

The Welsh Government have said this which could lead to a future moratorium on poultry farm planning applications.

Between April 2017 and April 2020, PCC received 96 intensive poultry unit planning applications of which 75 were approved.

In the same time frame, planning authorities across the rest of Wales received 20 applications, of which 13 were approved.

Herefordshire and Shropshire received a combined total of 35 applications, of which 20 were approved.