21 October - New applications invited

Other growers now need to apply

In correspondence to West Peckham Parish Council, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council have indicated that they will now be seeking planning permission for other existing polytunnel operations in the borough. They say:

"In respect of two further farms, Beech Farm, West Peckham and Manor Farm Ightham we have concluded that polytunnels erected on do indeed require the benefit of planning permission. We have been in communication with the owners of both these farms and we would now expect planning applications to be submitted in the not too distant future. I can't provide a precise timescale as yet but our expectation is that will be the case shortly.

12 July - permission granted

Packed planning meeting

The planning committee meeting took place at Leavers Manor Hotel on the 12 July 201. The main function room was packed with supporters and opponents to the application by Hugh Lowe Farms. At the end of a long day during which submissions from all sides were heard the committee granted permission subject to a number of conditions. These include a restriction on the overall area that can be under plastic at any one time, a minimum distance that the tunnels can be placed adjacent to residential properties, a restriction on the length of time that plastic can be on the tunnels and the provision of a strategy for the siting of tunnels in the future to limit their density in any one area. in addtion the applicant is required to submit a plan for the ongoing monitoring of flood risk and plans for a planting scheme to reduce the visual impact.

In the event the decision was much as could have been expected, it was highly unlikey that the council would have not granted permission. It is accepted that this form of growing technology is here to stay but if it is to be used then its impact on the landscape needs to be fully assessed and all possible mitigation measures put in place. This includes the impact on wildlife, flood risk, visual impact, etc. This application was very much seen as a test case in the area by which new applications will in future be judged. It is for these reasons that it had to be thoroughly tested through the planning system so that a bench mark could be put down for future applicants.

Improvements

There have been substantial improvements in the attention being paid by Hugh Lowe Farms to the overall environmental management and tidyness of the landscape. Piles of old rotting plastic bags no longer grace the field margins, rolls of plastic are no longer shoved in field corners and a lot more care is now being taken when the plastic beds are removed. Previously they were simply pulled from the ground leaving considerable quantities of plastic shreds in the soil and blowing around the landscape. Now they are being taken up carefully to prevent this escape of plastic and some(but not all) of the contaminated fields are being picked clean, although every time they are cultivated more buried plastic comes to the surface.

A considerable amount of planting of hedgerows and native species trees continues to take place and the woodlands under their care are now being well managed and coppiced. The headlands are sown with grass and well maintained, as are the hedgrows and the farm continues to work with Kent Wildlife.

The piles of old plastic, redundant growbags and the derelict fire engine have been cleared away from Two Gates in West Peckham, and the nearby reservoir has had a smart new fence erected and hedgerow planted around it.

Would any of this have happened of the planning application hadn't been scrutinised and tested by members of the local community ?

Unecessary

The whole process has caused a considerable amount of antagonism within two small parishes - West Peckham & Mereworth. Residents have felt themselves to be divided and categorised as 'pro farmer' or 'anti farmer'. Those of use who have questioned and tested the application being labelled as nimbys or people who don't understand the countryside. In fact it is because we do understand the countryside that we are motivated to explore fully the impact of new technologies upon it, those of us who live here and engage with the landscape observe how the water runs through it, where we see skylarks, great crested newts and badger sets. We do also understand that land based industry needs to be viable and that there has to be progress in all endeavours, including farming. However, all new technologies risk causing unforeseen consequences and when these occur they need to be addressed.

Before the first inadequate application was submitted there was considerable planning precedent from previous large scale applications for polyunnels that had been pursued all the way through the appeal process and ultimately the high court. These were in Surrey and Herefordshire where the County Council had even published an extensive and thorough Supplementary Planning document, which although not applicable here did nevertheless identify all the key issues that needed to be addressed.

Why was it then that a leading player in the industry chose to ignore or remain ignorant of what had gone before. Why did professional industry bodies such as the NFU and the Summer Soft Fruits Association not make themselves aware of these issues and advise their member accordingly, why did the professional planning consultant employed by Hugh Lowe Farms not do his research and advise his client properly.

Or did they all think that somehow they all stood above the planning system ?

If from the outset Hugh Lowe Farms had prepared thorough and extensive plans and undertaken proper face to face consultations with local residents and other interested parties a good deal of hot air, waste of money and ill feeling could have been avoided. The directive letter from the Governments Chief Planner in 2007 was unequivocal about the need for planing permission for large scale installations, yet the NFU and others seemed ignorant of it.

Other essential services including hospitals, doctors surgeries, water supply installations, homes for people to live in and premises for them to work in al require planning permission. Not to prevent them from being built or to make life difficult for those providing them, but to ensure that when they are, it is done in the best possible way. And so it must be for agriculture as well.

PROBLEMS REMAIN

Flood risk

In spite of the cosmetic improvements there are still some serious shortcomings in the application. There is no doubt that flood prevention measures above West Peckham are inneffective, there have always been problems with water running down the roads and hillside and threatening homes. The situation is much worse now that silt and water run off the fields conatining plastic, more so next year when another chunk of the hillside becomes tunelled - see 'plans' page for more info on this. The CPRE continue to oppose the application and have cast doubt on the flood risk calculations supplied by the applicant see their report here

Coverage

The application is seriously flawed - if it is passed as it stands it would be possible to erect polytunnles in all of the fields all of the time. Although Hugh Lowe Farms say that they anticipate a coverage of about 30% there would be nothing to stop them covering the entire application area with plastic forever.

Four year rule

As outlined on the 'plans' page, the applicant using claiming the four year rule on a large area of polytunnels without supplying any evidence that they are eligable to be left out of teh application.

Visual impact

The appearance of large areas of plastic in promient position in the landscape remains a real difficulty in spite of efforts to mitigate the visual impact. Some of the mitigating measures will in themselves impede distant views from footpaths and conservation areas. Either way we have much to loose.

These are just some of the ongoing objections to this large industrial development. We also believe that the business case is flawed and the financial benefits to the locality and country have been overstated. Many claims for development with regards to reducing food miles, carbon footprint etc are unsubstantiated. Although the tunnels are unsightly, the decision will ultimately be a technical one based on facts rather than on their visual impact on the landscape.

21 MAY - DEMO AT SITE MEETING

Councillors down on the farm

Well over a hundred people drawn from the residents of West Peckham and affected surrounding parishes gathered on West Peckham Village Green on Saturday to demonstrate against the planning application. The gathering was timed to begin with the start of a site visit by memebers of the Area 2 Planning Committee who are due to consider the application at their forthcoming meeting on 9 June. The visit took the members to a number of view points in the locality where they could see first hand the fields that are due for tunnelling as well as those with plastic already in place.

Neat and tidy

It is very clear that a huge amount of work has been going on to tidy up the farm. Plastic rolls and bags of gravel are no longer stored in fields or being allowed to rot and decompose in hedgerows and a lot of additional hedge and tree planting has taken place to help to reduce the visual impact of the tunnels. Much of this is very recent, particularly that which aims to mitigate the ugly intrusion of the reservoirs. Field margins have been grassed and mown, signs have been erected at strategic points on the farm with information for walkers on routes and the wild birds that they are likely to see. Shreds of plastic litter which littered the fields around the village have been painstaikingly picked up.

The farmland around West Peckham has never been to neat and tidy.

However, the fields further away are still contain large amounts of plastic waste. When the party of councillors arrived at The corner of Hadlow Field, the farm manager was spotted rushing around picking up bits of blue plastic and broken irrigation pipe and stuffing them in the back of his land rover. This field, along with many others in the vicinty remains heavily littered with plastic.

OBJECTIONS WITHDRAWN

additional assessments submitted but questions remain

Natural England and the Environment agency are now satisfied that Hugh Lowe farms have supplied sufficient additional assessments to allay their concerns about the impact of the development on the North Downs AONB and the potential flood risk. However, residents in West Peckham still have their doubts about the effectiveness of the flood prevention measures that have been put in place above the village - see 'the plans' page.

NATURAL ENGLAND OBJECTS

'concerned that the wider landscape impacts of this proposal appear not to have been fully assessed'

Natural England, the government’s official advisory body on the natural environment, has lodged an objection to the revised polytunnel planning application by Hugh Lowe Farms of Mereworth.

When the controversial application was first lodged in December 2008 it very quickly became apparent that not only was the scale of the proposal unacceptable but that the application itself was seriously flawed and inadequate. So much so that the planners at Tonbridge and Malling were severely criticised for even accepting it in the first place because boundary lines were wrongly drawn and vital information was missing. At a public meeting last year the leader of the Kent Liberal Party, Cllr. Trudy Dean described it as something that ‘could have been written on the back of a fag packet’.

Then in June 2009 the council planners issued a letter of direction that took six pages to explain the inadequacies of the application and request the missing assessments relating to flood risk, landscape impact and the business case.
Over a year later Hugh Lowe Farms eventually delivered the additional information and now it seems that even after all that time they still can’t get it right. Natural England have pointed out that no evaluation has been made of the impact of the polytunnels on the landscape outside of the application area.

In their letter of objection they say that ‘ given the scale and nature of the development there is potential for significant impacts on the wider local landscape..’  and they are therefore ‘..concerned that the wider landscape impacts of this proposal appear not to have been fully assessed’. They also say that they ‘are disappointed that there is insufficient consideration of the potential impacts upon the Kent Downs AONB’

It is extraordinary that a business with a multi million pound turnover and all the resources and expertise at their disposal can’t manage to get it right despite having taken over a year to come up the required information.

Read their letter of objection HERE

15.09.10 - COUNCIL EXTENDS DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS

At the meeting of the area 2 planning committee on 15 September the council agreed to extend the deadline for comments about the application. This followed representations by West Peckham Parish Council who argued that such was the complexity and shear size of the application that extra time would be needed to fully evaluate the information it contains. The new deadline for comments is 31 January 2011.

AUGUST 2010 - THE COMPLETE APPLICATION FINALLY ARRIVES

After a wait of over a year, Hugh Lowe Farms has finally delivered

In September 2010 Hugh Lowe Farms has finally managed to deliver a complete planning application for it's plasticulture operation. The original application was filed with Tonbridge and Malling Council in December 2008 but it quickly became apparent that it was seriously flawed. The red boundary lines were drawn in the wrong place which rendered it invalid, there was also no flood risk assessment, a 'home made' visual impact assessment and no supporting business case. Following criticism of their incompetence for accepting the application the planners issued a six page letter of direction asking for these inadequacies to be rectified. Now, over a year later they have finally complied and the new in formation is now online for inspection.

PROFESSOR RICHARD SCASE SUPPORTS POLYTUNNEL CAMAIGN AT ICKHAM

"it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that without strict planning controls, parts of east Kent could become what already exists in southern Spain”

The planning application by Hugh Lowe Farms represents issues that extend beyond the purely local. In a changing global climate and economy, questions arise around methods of food production and distribution. In order to address some of these concerns the Sustainable Development Commission(SDC) have just published a paper which identifies a number of trends relating to food security. The report quotes DEFRA Horticultural Statistics 2008 which show that between 1997 and 2007 the total vegetable production in the UK fell by 24%, orchard fruit fell by 19% but 'glasshouse fruit"(which includes polytunnel production) rose by a staggering 224%.

10.8.2009 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION WEIGH IN

"strawberries grown without regard to the environment, in acres of plastic polytunnels, and too often picked by migrants working under less than desirable conditions, is not what we want more of.”

The planning application by Hugh Lowe Farms represents issues that extend beyond the purely local. In a changing global climate and economy, questions arise around methods of food production and distribution. In order to address some of these concerns the Sustainable Development Commission(SDC) have just published a paper which identifies a number of trends relating to food security. The report quotes DEFRA Horticultural Statistics 2008 which show that between 1997 and 2007 the total vegetable production in the UK fell by 24%, orchard fruit fell by 19% but 'glasshouse fruit"(which includes polytunnel production) rose by a staggering 224%.

Clearly traditional crops of everyday fruit and vegetables are being displaced by the more lucrative soft fruits resulting in massive polytunnel operations of the type proposed by Hugh Lowe Farms.

SDC commissioner Professor Tim Lang said there was an endemic problem with the food industry’s structure: He is quoted in the Fresh Produce Journal as saying:

“In recent years, governments have relied on big food retailers to deliver low prices in the name of a ‘cheap food policy’. Rocketing food prices last year have shown how volatile this system is...

“Growing more of the strawberries we consume in the UK is fine, but strawberries grown without regard to the environment, in acres of plastic polytunnels, and too often picked by migrants working under less than desirable conditions, is not what we want more of.”

The full SDC report is here

26.6.2009 SENIOR KCC ARCHEOLOGICAL OFFICER RAISES CONCERNS

'more polytunnels could have a significant impact'

A senior KCC Archeological officer has responded to a request from Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council planners for comments on the H|LF application. She has pointed out that 'the environs of the extensive application site is one rich in heritage' and that 'these historic villages are set within a landscape which still reflects locally distinctive, possibly medieval but certainly post medieval, character' she then goes on to say that there is 'insufficient assessment of views from the historic elements.'

The letter raises a numbet of concerns including the proposal for taller windbreaks and trees to screen the polytunnels pointing out that this could also block important views and change the appearance of the landscape.

The Officer clearly finds the planning application to be inadequate, stating that there is an 'insufficient assessment of views from the historic elements, particularly the parklands' and concludes with the comment:

I therefore recommend that prior to determination of this application, there needs to be a specialist assessment of the historic environment.There needs to be clear consideration of the historic attributes of this area,

The full letter is here

5.6.2009 COUNCIL RESPONSE

'application is invalid from a legal point of view'

On 5 June Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council sent a 'letter of direction' to Hugh Lowe farms asking for a considerable amount of extra information to address serious shortcomings in the application. It runs to six pages and points out that currently the application is invalid from a legal point of view because the boundaries have been incorrectly drawn. It goes on to ask for a definition of 'successional tunnels' and their degree of permanence, it asks for a business case to be supplied, a landscape assessment, flood risk assesment and water management plan, waste management plan, proposals to reduce the impact on residential amenity amongst other things. It says;

'I hope you realise that this information is necessary to provide if the council is to be able to fully and properly assess this geographically extensive, technically complex and controversial proposal.

This letter is therefore issued as a direction requiring further information under Regulation 4 of the Town and Country Planning(Application) Regulations 1988'

The fact that the letter is six pages long clearly demonstrates the substantial inadequacies of the original planning application, being a letter of direction means that if the information asked for is not forthcoming the application will not be considered. It is astonishing that a modern, dynamic business with an annual turnover of £8m should get a planning application so wrong.

The letter is in the public domain on the TMBC website, find it here.

22.5.2009 TUNNELS – THE POLY-TICS

Application ‘could have been written on back of a fag packet’  says county councillor.

On 22 May councillors clashed at a meeting called by 'Landscape Matters' in West Peckham. Representatives from KCC, Tonbridge and Malling and a number of parish councils joined local residents to hear how the campaign to control polytunnels was progressing.

Conservative borough councillors Jill Anderson and Matthew Balfour from Tonbridge and Malling faced criticism that their planning department had registered an application for polytunnels that was inadequate and shoddy.  Cllr Trudy Dean, the leader of the KCC Liberal group commented that it ‘could have been written on the back of a fag packet’ and that T&MBC planners should have refused to register the application involving a total of 1315 acres of farmland over six parishes. Mark Freed, Chair of West Peckham Parish Council, pointed out a number of serious shortcomings in the plans by Hugh Lowe farms of Mereworth for what he claimed would be the biggest polytunnel operation so far in the UK. He questioned why T&MBC had agreed to register the plans in spite of the lack of a proper Landscape Impact Assessment, Flood Risk Assessment, Waste Management Plan or Ecological Survey.

There was further criticism of local Borough Councillor Jill Anderson with claims that she had attempted to avoid meeting with the Parish Council to discuss the matter. Cllr Anderson defended herself by explaining that she had felt unable to do so for fear of compromising her position under the local councillor’s code of conduct. This claim was hotly refuted by Liz Simpson the Liberal Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Tonbridge & Malling. Cllr Trudy Dean agreed, declaring that it was ‘absolute rubbish’ to suggest that Cllr Anderson shouldn’t ask questions about the issues, adding that she had a duty to her electorate to do so.

Mark Freed pointed out that Herefordshire County Council has prepared supplementary planning guidance for polytunnels and called on KCC to do the same. Richard Long, Conservative KCC Councillor for Malling Rural East replied that the County Council could not get involved as planning was delegated to the districts. This was again refuted by Cllr Trudy Dean who said that although it was true that planning decisions were made at district level the KCC could nevertheless exercise some input and leadership via the Kent Planning Officers Group.

Interest in the planning application is growing at both a local and national level as the acreage under plastic continues to increase, not just in Kent but across the UK. Cllr Balfour remarked that there wouldn’t be a council planning officer in the country who wasn’t taking an interest in what is happening here.

26.4.2009 KENT ON SUNDAY

Kent on Sunday ran the story on 26 April. Once again Marion Regan is quoted as saying:

“This planning application is to recognise what we are already doing at the farm. It’s unclear whether or not we need permission for the polytunnels, but we have taken it upon ourselves to apply."

This is clearly at odds to a letter received by a local resident last year from Tonbridge & Malling Council which says

"a retrospective application for the retention of the tunnels will be invited"

The planning application has therefore been supplied at the request of Tonbridge & Malling Council and not as an unsolicited gesture by Hugh Lowe Farms. The council would have no reason, or right, to invite an application if there was no requirment to do so. Following a High Court decision on another application in 2006, the Government's Chief Planning Officer stated that in future all large scale operations would need planning permission.

In addition the farm as yet does not have 40% of it's tunnels as permanent structures which is what the application asks for, this is something new and not an existing practice.

Full story here

24.4.2009 KENT MESSENGER FRONT PAGE

The story hit the front page of the Kent Messenger on 24 April. Marion Regan of Hugh Lowe farms is quoted

"This is an existing business and we are not proposing a massive change"

Full story here

6.4.2009 THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY WARN HLF

The Environment Agency have recently written to Hugh Lowe farms to point out that they have been:

" investigating that significant quantities of windblown plastic debris have been escaping from fields owned or farmed by Hugh Lowe Farms Ltd. One of my officers inspected several of your fields, adjacent hedgerows and roads noting significant amounts of plastic in these areas. Whilst undertaking this inspection he also saw plastic being blown from the fields. Stockpiled growing/ weighted bags were also noted degrading in the field margins"

They inform HLF that Under Section 34 (1) (b) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 it is the duty of any person who produces controlled waste to prevent the escape of waste from his control or that of any other person. They have asked HLF to submit a plan to deal with the issue but warn that

"you should be aware that if a satisfactory proposal is not submitted, or the proposal is not followed to our satisfaction, we would have to consider whether to take enforcement action against you for these offences."

Their full letter is HERE

16.4.2009 THE GREEN PARTY OBJECTS

On the 16th April the Kent Green Party lodged a detailed objection to the Hugh Lowe Farms planning application. They identify issues around waste management and control, the lack of a Flood Risk Assessment, Landscape Impact Assessment and ecological survey amongst others. They go on to say:

The size of this application is considerable. The area of polytunnels proposed at any one time is 430 acres - approximately a third of the site. The total area of polytunnels in the whole of Herefordshire for 2005 was 420 acres. The proposal therefore seems to be oversized and intrusive.

Their full objection document is here

8.4.2009 THE LIBERALS WEIGH IN

Writing on their website on the 8th April the Leader of the Liberal Party on Kent County Council has called on KCC to produce planning guidelines for polytunnels in response to the application by Hugh Lowe Farms. Cllr Trudy Dean who is the KCC member for Malling central explained that she had seen in other countries the result of shreds of plastic from polytunnels turning the countryside into a rubbish tip. In her April newsletter she says:

"Planning authorities would need to be vigilant about the disposal of waste materials. The application from Hugh Lowe Farms so far does not address this problem."

"We must have guidelines urgently about how many polytunels are acceptable within the landscape, how they should be screened, who gets rid of waste and whether permanent polytunnels using growbags on tables need to be in the countryside at all."

Full article here

10.4.2009 KENT AND SUSSEX COURIER - PADDOCK WOOD

On Friday 10 April, the Paddock Wood Courier reported "FARMER PUZZLED BY FURY OVER POLYTUNNEL PLANS'

Hugh Lowe farms owner Marion Regan said " We're not asking for anything new. I mean we're in the Garden of England. We're quite surprised this level of vehement opposition has sprouted up, but we are taking their views very seriously and listening to what they say"

Full story here

10.4.2009 KENT AND SUSSEX COURIER - TONBRIDGE

The Tonbridge edition carried a story about the application in their Friday 10 April edition which picked up on the CPRE objection.

"The Countryside of Hadlow could soon be transformed if planning permission is granted for a giant polytunnel operation spanning six parishes. Campaigners have spoken out against Hugh Lowe Farms, of Mereworth's, application for the 1,315-acre strawberry-growing site, which would feature 430 acres covered by plastic sheeting at any one time."

Full story here

THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL ENGLAND OBJECTS

The Tonbridge and Malling District Committee hosted an information day at Haldow College on the 4 April during which the issues raised by large scale polytunnel operations were the subject of one of the presentations. The application by Hugh Lowe Farms was used as a local example of some of the problems that need to be addressed by growers using this technology.

During the previous week the CPRE formally submitted it's objections to the application by HLF which included a number of issues including the adverse impact on residential amenity, the landscape and conservation areas, the absence of waste management plans anda formal flood risk assesment.

Their full objection document is here

BBC RADIO KENT

The application by Hugh Lowe farms was featured on BBC Radio Kent's Breakfast show on Thursday 5 March.

The Chair of West Peckham Parish Council, Mark Freed, explained why they had recommended to Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council that they reject the application. Later in programme Marion Regan of Hugh Lowe Farms claimed that she is merely regularising in planning their existing growing operation:

‘This is not an application for something new, we are asking Tonbridge and Malling to recognise an existing practice on the farm…’

It may be existing but it is still only a recent development. Over the last few years there has been a steady increase in the number of polytunnels left up permanently. One particular field in West Peckham has had polytunnels in place for at least nine years in contravention of planning and is now classified as an unauthorised development. She also claimed that they practice a rotational system

‘We work by fields, one field will be in strawberries for two or three years then it will come out and we’ll put it in to an arable crop to rest the land and get it’s fertility levels back. Then we go back in with another strawberry or raspberry crop and that’s what we’ve done for over a hundred years’

This may have been true in her grandfather’s day but the truth is that HLF is now moving to a system of permanent polytunnels which will be in place all year round. According to the figures in her planning application, by 2010 there will be a total of 68 Ha of ‘successional’ or permanent tunnels out of a total tunnel area of 174.08 Ha. This means that 39% of the polytunnels will be permanent and not in a rotational system.

Speaking at a recent public meeting Mrs Regan stated that HLF were looking to begin a table top operation in which strawberries are grown in bags on trestles inside permanent tunnels. This means that if her application is successful, almost half of her polytunnels could eventually contain unsightly metal frameworks and irrigation equipment all year round and on a permanent basis.

It is fortunate that large scale polytunnel operations have recently been brought into the planning process so for the first time local residents and other interested parties have a democratic right to make public their growing concerns. Hugh Lowe Farms are embarking on a process of wholesale agricultural industrialisation which will have a profound impact on the countryside in this corner of the Garden of England.