THE Green Party in south Shropshire is in a flap after planners gave the green light to a poultry unit at Walcot Farm in Lydbury North.

Members of Shropshire Council’s southern area planning committee approved the scheme for a unit for 35,000 birds despite a number of objections.

Now the Green Party is saying that they failed to take local opinion into account.

Objections were received from parish councils, the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership, National Trust, Shropshire Parks and Garden Trust and the Kemp Valley Group.

The Green Party considers that there should be greater consideration for animal welfare, antibiotic resistance, support for small farms and a strong, ethical farming policy that protects the environment and creates more jobs than large scale intensive units.

“The South Shropshire Planning Committee was presented with a large number of sound reasons on planning grounds why this application should be rejected and it chose to ignore them,” said John Whitelegg of The Green Party.

“This lack of awareness and lack of interest in asking searching questions does not serve the interests of local residents, habitat and ecology and the need to protect a nationally important environment from cumulative pollution from agricultural sources.”