A River Action board member has been granted permission by the High Court to challenge Shropshire Council’s approval of a broiler farm in the River Severn catchment.
The judicial review aims to halt what the river charity calls the "further spread of industrial scale intensive poultry production" in the Shropshire catchment.
The legal action is part of a wider campaign by River Action to use the law to stop the approval of new poultry farms in the area due to pollution concerns.
It warned that the Wye catchment area had been 'devastated' by a failure to enforce anti-pollution regulations.
The action is being taken by Dr Alison Caffyn, who lives in Shropshire and is a member of River Action’s advisory board. She is being represented by law firm Leigh Day.
In May, Shropshire Council approved an application by LJ Cooke & Son for a poultry production unit at Felton Butler, north-west of Shrewsbury, following a lengthy legal battle.
The new unit would house 230,000 broilers and include a biomass store, but Dr Caffyn argued the development was part of a "giant cluster of polluting poultry units".
An application was made for a judicial review into the council's decision, which argued that the council failed to take a number of issues into account, including the effects of spreading manure and the emissions from burning biomass.
Speaking about the legal action, Dr Caffyn said the council had continued to grant planning permission for poultry units across the county despite pollution concerns.
"The chicken population has grown so much that there are now nearly 65 chickens for every person in Shropshire," she noted.
"And it appears that the council has not been properly assessing the impacts of all that extra manure and ammonia emissions on our rivers and special habitats.
"We need them to stop allowing ever more levels of unsustainable industrial agriculture in Shropshire.”
Charles Watson, chairman of River Action, added that the charity looked forward to supporting this 'critical' legal action through its next phase as it goes to court.
"By recklessly waiving through permission for ever more giant intensive poultry units, Shropshire County Council is effectively pronouncing the death sentence on yet another iconic British river.
"The construction of these giant unsustainable pollution clusters, with no due consideration being given of their cumulative environmental impact, cannot be allowed to continue."
