The UK livestock industry was valued at some £19 billion in 2023, and despite being all pervasive, much of its operations remain hidden from the public. A recent planning application provided some alarming insights into the practices of one so-called pig producer.
The Drone
It was like any other appeal on Crowdfunder – a short video asking for donations. On this occasion the money raised would be used to investigate and report on animal cruelty. The March 2022 campaign was a success, raising almost £22,000 in 27 days (the target was £15,000).
The money was put to immediate use, including buying drones to fly over factory farms in east Anglia. The counties of Norfolk and Suffolk hold approximately 38 million so-called farm animals captive prior to their slaughter. The number is shocking. If applied to the human population of England, it would equate to 68% of us being incarcerated. The Norfolk-Suffolk seaboard, so often marketed as England’s serene seaside, is in fact one extended prison.
On August 9th 2022, drone footage was released of two dozen pigs being shot on a Thetford, Norfolk farm. The killings happened weeks earlier and came on the back of a June 23rd possible foot and mouth outbreak. The source of the outbreak (not the Thetford farm in the footage) was investigated and cleared within 48 hours.
Despite any threat of foot and mouth being ruled out by government officials, the operators of the Thetford farm reacted with haste. They constructed three side-by-side cul-de-sacs, each made of straw bales and sealed off with lean-to metal panels. Pigs were trapped inside, and a man walked amongst them, firing a rifle. Some wriggled as they bled out – others fell on top of each other. A tractor with a front loader scooped up dead pig bodies and tipped them into a waiting open top blue lorry. The soil turned dark from the spilt blood.
While killing farm animals isn’t illegal, there are obligations under the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations (WATOK) 2015 that need to be met. The drone footage depicted a cruel and callous series of executions, with little adherence to any guidelines, and was sufficient for the RSPCA to suspend the farm from its assurance and welfare accreditation scheme.
The Thetford farm, operated by Wayland Farms, maintained the ‘cull’ was legal, but this wouldn’t be the only time its hasty and sloppy practices would court controversy.
Wayland Farms
Wayland Farms is opaque – like so much of the animal agriculture industry. Root around and you’re left with more questions than answers. What we know is that they began operations in 1952 and through ‘organic growth and investment’ they have become one of the ’largest outdoor reared pig producers in the United Kingdom.’ The term ‘outdoor’ is used loosely in animal agriculture and lacks specificity and precision, so to counter that vagueness it’s helpful to establish some context.
The UK is projected to execute 10.8 million pigs this calendar year. Most will be between 20 and 24 weeks old when killed and will initially be gassed before having their throats slit and bleeding out. Approximately 90 percent of female pigs (sows) will be confined to a ‘rape rack’ where a weighted saddle called a ‘breeding buddy’ is placed on their back to mimic the pressure of a mate so a catheter can be inserted by a farm worker. Rows of sows will be violated simultaneously. It is not unusual for a sow to be raped within a week of her last litter being weaned according to vegan campaign group, Viva!
An average of 12 percent of piglets will die before weaning age, many from starvation or hypothermia. Those that survive will have their teeth and tails clipped and most males will be castrated – all without any form of pain relief. Piglets are removed from their mothers at between three to four weeks and transferred to ‘growing’ sheds. At 10 weeks they are relocated to ‘fattening’ or ‘finishing’ sheds, after which they will be killed.
Having established a basic understanding of the absence of care and welfare, we can revisit the ‘outdoor’ claim. Recognised estimates suggest less than four percent of pigs will spend their entire lives outside. For the remaining 96 percent, some will have access to an outdoor paddock while weaning, and the vast majority will be indoors for their entire finishing period.
Wayland is one of 20 companies owned by food giant Cranswick Plc, who supply supermarkets including Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. According to Pig World, in 2023 Cranswick had 62,000 sows in servitude, producing 29,000 pigs per week. Like Wayland, Cranswick’s other companies have also come under scrutiny. Between 2018 and 2022, its Bury site experienced a series of staff walkouts over pay and conditions. In May 2022, its Country Foods subsidiary recalled chicken products after salmonella was detected in products such as sandwiches, wraps, and salads. In March 2023, an undercover investigation by The Animal Justice Project recorded serious human-on-animal abuses at a Cranswick-owned farm in Warwickshire, including pigs frequently being kicked and slapped, and rammed with metal doors. Sick and injured pigs and bins with dead carcasses were regularly left unattended. But it was a July 2017 planning application by Wayland that would provide a telling insight into the operating environment at Cranswick.
The Planning Application
“We’ve lived here for over 35 years, and there was a smaller pig unit behind us. It housed a maximum about 600 pigs and was owned by Bowes but was sold to Wayland Farms in 2016.”
In July 2017, Wayland Farms submitted a planning application to Breckland Council to expand its so-called pig production at Cherry Tree Farm in Stow Bedon, Norfolk. The plan was to demolish ten buildings and erect seven new pig sheds with high velocity roof fans and to fit a new roof over an existing manure store. The proposed development would increase Wayland’s capacity from roughly 600 to 7,000 pigs, and require an operators permit from the Environment Agency. Permit holders are obliged to meet minimum standards for managing slurry, ammonia emissions and environmental pollution. In August 2019 the planning application was approved and by June 2021 the new facilities were operational.
Sheds Without Walls
I asked Ann Cuthbert, a healthcare professional who lives a few hundred metres from Cherry Tree Farm, when she first realised something was wrong.
“They applied for planning permission in 2017, which was granted in 2019 subject to a list of conditions. They started demolishing almost straight away and were building throughout COVID, as they were deemed an essential service. But when we looked at the actual buildings, they didn’t fully resemble the plans.”
The plans submitted by Wayland in 2017 showed solid wall sheds and referred to continuously operated roof mounted, high velocity fans. What appeared to be built were sheds with adjustable curtain walls and roof fans in the ridge. And the curtains weren’t the only surprise to Ann.
“It’s not just the curtains, the feed silos were huge, way too big, not the size they said that they were going to build.”
Curtained walls offer benefits such as natural ventilation and can be cost-effective, but they also present challenges, particularly in the form of noise and odour pollution. In addition, volatile organic compounds, bioaerosols, parasites, antibiotic resistant bacteria and excessive levels of ammonia can escape into neighbouring environments.
Ammonia Clouds
Ammonia is a gas, formed from nitrogen and hydrogen, which has a pungent smell, and occurs naturally in the decomposition of matter such as urea in animal waste. Uncontrolled, ammonia can be a major threat to biodiversity, air quality and human health. A 2019 report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Guardian and Channel 4 News concluded at ‘least 3,000 deaths annually could be avoided if agricultural ammonia emissions were halved.’ Higher ammonia concentrations are associated with lung and respiratory illnesses, cerebrovascular disease, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. Worryingly, ammonia emissions in the UK have been rising – from 257,000 tonnes per year in 2013 to 265,000 tonnes in 2023, with roughly 85 percent of emissions coming from agriculture.
Ann recalls when the ammonia pollution started: “In 2021 we started to get these large ammonia plumes being released from the Cherry Tree Farm site. That’s a good way of describing them, plumes. They arrive, not always visible. So, you could be sitting down with the windows open, and then quite suddenly the smell just surrounds you. The room fills in seconds. Once it’s in the room it’s so powerful and it’s not just the odour. People talk about it being an odour and a smell, but that’s just the marker. The fact that it is ammonia means that it hits your eyes, the tops of your nose, the tops of your lungs, it makes your eyes stream. It gets into the soft furnishings, gets into the dog’s coats. If there’s laundry on the line, it has to be rewashed.”
Complaints, and a Hotline
Complaints from nearby residents quickly followed, almost 400 of them. In May 2022, the Environment Agency issued a Compliance Assessment Report (CAR) which determined the sheds were ‘not ventilated solely using high velocity roof fans but on a combination of fans and natural ventilation.’ This unilateral design change by Wayland rendered the fans ineffective and was ‘contrary to the information supplied’ in its permit application. Rather than withdraw the permit, Wayland were invited to re-submit their application. In November 2023 a second CAR was issued in which the environmental officer ‘scored the odour intensity as 4-5 out of 6 and described it as having a very strong urine smell which made them [the officer] feel unwell.’ Between 2017 and March 2024 there would be a total of 12 permit breaches at Cherry Tree Farm. At no time was the permit withdrawn.
Wayland did make changes to the site’s operations and in particular its chimney heights, which went from two meters to five metres or 16.5 feet. According to residents, the results are negligible, as the local topography and prevailing wind patterns had not been sufficiently taken into account. Cherry Tree Farm is nestled in a valley, meaning the pollution it omits is effectively trapped if the predominant ventilation mechanism is a curtain-based system. The complaints continued, and by July 2024 the Environment Agency had posted an information page for Cherry Tree Farm, which included a 24 hour incident hotline.
Cherry Tree Farm is a Frankenstein of a facility – a disorderly concoction of cost cutting and neglect, of arrogance and contempt for the council, the Environment Agency, and the surrounding residents.
“The problem is a planning issue on the one hand, and an environmental issue on the other.
Cherry Tree Farm haven’t controlled the pollution so it’s a breach of the operator’s permit, but the Environment Agency aren’t doing anything about it,” said Ann.
“With fabric walls, they’re simply curtains that roll up and down, Wayland can push the pollution out of the sheds whenever they want. I think that saves them quite a lot of money. Just roll down the curtains and all that pollution escapes at head height, and then we can filter it with our lungs – thank you very much Wayland.”
Retrospective Planning Application
When construction of the new sheds was completed, back in 2021, Wayland submitted a retrospective planning application, the timing of which feels uncomfortable.
“Wayland immediately put in for retrospective planning permission. They were saying, ‘yeah, hands up, we’ve not built it the way we were supposed to, so this is what we’ve done. Just give us retrospective planning permission please.’ It was as if they never took the original application seriously” concluded Ann.
Breckland Council were slow to act. It has taken them four years to set an application hearing date. It will be on May 13th. Many submission documents, including critical assessments, evaluations, and reports, are now out of date, and the Environmental Law Foundation worry that if the application is approved it risks setting a precedent for unauthorised developments becoming immune from enforcement action.
Ann has a similar worry: “Wayland rely on producing large numbers of pigs to make a profit, so what’s to stop them expanding Cherry Tree Farm again? We could end up with 14,000 pigs here. People say, ‘well they won’t get the planning permission,’ and I say well they haven’t got it now and look what’s happened.”
While speaking with those outside Cherry Farm, I wonder what life is like inside those industrial metal sheds. If the ammonia and noise and general pollution is problematic outside, what is the lived experience inside? Ann shares a short video taken from her back garden. It’s 13 seconds long and the audio is piercing. I listen to it several times and I hear pain and panic and fear.
I think about Wayland and its commodification of animals and of life, and its ethically and morally bankrupt business model. It enslaves, subjugates, and violates – and we allow that not only to be permitted but normalised. Cherry Tree Farm is us inflicted on ourselves, and I am left sensing the real issue isn’t that its expansion differed from the approved plan, but that the expansion was ever allowed at all. It has been said that to animals we are the devils of this planet, and unless we close Cherry Tree Farm – permanently – the deduction is accurate.
— ©2025 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer Insta: @theafghanwriter
