The British countryside is in danger of becoming split between two extremes: industrial agriculure and protected ‘parkland’. Planning laws perpetuate the division, by rigorous zoning of  ‘permitted development’ away from rural areas and the small villages within them, unless of course development is undertaken by very large businesses that can sway the views of  local authority planning committees, whose job it is to ensure compliance with planning laws. One planning objective is to preserve the look of the countryside, to prevent it changing to meet new challenges.

We are going to need a new smallholder movement to repopulate the countryside, produce food in sustainable ways, and generate custom for all sorts of skilled craft enterprises, as inevitable consequences of Peak Oil. Yet the planners put no end of barriers in the way of people keen to experience and demonstrate low-energy lifestyles. We only need to look at the determination of planners in Shropshire, England, to close down Karuna, a permaculture project that offers training in sustainable food production and low-energy lifestyles.  Permaculture refers to sustainable food production in accordance with the natural local ecology:  see www.karuna.org.uk for a dossier on Karuna’s long-running battle with the planners who see no value in a permaculture settlement, only a visual intrusion into lovely leafy countryside.

On the other side of England, in Lincolnshire, there is a planning application for a huge agribusiness development that may well be given permission, although it would be far more visually intrusive than Karuna. North Kesteven Council is mulling over application no. 09/1040/FUL, for a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on 19 acres at Nocton Heath. On those 19 acres there would be between 8,000 and 9,000 cattle, a density of up to 474 to each acre. They would be inside, of course, their food would be transported to them, and the ‘farm’ would include a staff dormitory  — who wants to sleep in a dormitory? — as well as five houses for farm workers.

The application, from Nocton Dairies Ltd, is dated December 17th 2009. The men steering Nocton Dairies (www.noctondairies.co.uk) are Peter Willes, of Parkham Farms in Devon, David Barnes, who manages a dairy unit that Mr Willes has in Clitheroe, Lancashire, and Robert Howard, an arable farmer.

North Kesteven Council aims to decide on the application by April 12th 2010, and has set a deadline of May 3rd. The fact that the development would create over 80 jobs almost immediately is an important consideration for the planners.

The dairy unit would have eight buildings for cattle housing, two maternity/hospital buildings, two milking parlours, holding areas, a feed store, a lagoon for excrement, an anaerobic digestion unit, weighbridge, staff dormitory, five dwellings for workers, internal roads and paths, and a new vehicular access to the B1188. It would be a very large factory development.

By May 3rd, we will know if this mega dairy is to be constructed. If the planners say ‘yes’, they will be reinforcing the double standards that reject small, sustainable, low-cost ventures but accept wasteful and unnatural but very expensive ones. Money talks.

Surely we need to campaign to change planning laws, so that they favour development which is small-scale, local, and environmentally aware?

To comment on Nocton Dairies’ application, go to http://planningonline.n-kesteven.gov.uk.