Introduction

“The most recent State of the Park Report shows that the environment, ecology and biodiversity of the National Park are in decline and makes clear that drastic action is required to change this”

Audit Wales report Brecon Beacons National Park Authority – Delivery of the Change Programme, Feb 2021

If the Bannau Brycheiniog/Brecon Beacons National Park Authority [BBNPA] is to begin to tackle the climate emergency or biodiversity crisis in any substantive way, it must first act consistently to prevent harm to this National Park. What use is a tokenistic sparrow terrace or bat roost when the Wye is close to ecological death and air, water and soil pollution continue to spiral out of control?

Since 2020, members of FOBMS have successfully campaigned against poor decisions - (on BBNPA 20/18928/FUL and 20/18931/FUL) which have been quashed twice already as a result of legal action brought by one of our members - to permit huge agricultural buildings which support and perpetuate a growing intensive sheep processing operation in the catchment of a Special Area of Conservation, between two SSSIs and on a spur overlooking the historic Llanthony Valley.

“…it is an uncomfortable truth given our first purpose requires the Authority to conserve and enhance wildlife in all our activity..that the condition of Sites of Scientific Interest is worse inside National Parks than outside’’

BBNPA Future Beacons: The Management Plan for the Brecon Beacons National Park 2022-27

FOBMS have submitted APIS data showing the degradation of the SSSIs adjacent to the application site in objections

Summary

Dr Rosalind Bradbury is challenging the BBNPA again, after it failed in its duty to protect the National Park by granting planning permission for a third time. On this approval, as twice before, the authority failed to address the pollution risk to the River Wye Special Area of Conservation [SAC], or to demonstrate it values the heritage or public rights of way and access within the Park. This development will compromise the reinstatement of a national footpath – obstructed by previous works on this same site.

"We are less than two planning cycles away from the key target dates... and simply cannot ignore the repeated warning signs of a system in collapse"

Catherine Mealing-Jones, BBNPA CEO, The Management Plan for the Brecon Beacons National Park 2022-27

Call to action 

FOBMS urgently need your support  to oppose the planning authority responsible for enabling harm on the application site since 2017 - The  Brecon Beacons /Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority [BBNPA] – in a third legal challenge, brought by Dr Rosalind Bradbury,  via the Court of Appeal.

Please give what you can and share this page to help hold the BBNPA to account and to protect this National Park and the wider environment, now and for future generations.

“The earth, the air, the land, and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us.” 

Gandhi

What are the Friends of the Black Mountains trying to achieve?

FOBMS want the BBNPA to fulfil its primary statutory duty to protect and enhance, to follow its own policies and national legislation consistently, to engage in a fair, constructive, and democratic way with all its residents and the wider public and to demonstrate a commitment to examine thoroughly the environmental impact of all development within its boundaries, using the tools available to it.

What should be valued in a National Park is well documented. It includes Dark Skies, purity of air and water, historic buildings, ancient monuments, good husbandry and the sustainable farming practices that shaped its special landscape. 

The many challenges facing this National Park are documented too… and the subject application site encompasses a long list of such challenges!

“Of all the hundreds of farm operations I have seen that are destroying the natural world in the UK, this is the worst. The farm is, in my expert opinion, causing highly significant phosphate and sediment pollution to the brook in the valley that leads into the Honddu, which leads into the River Monnow and the River Wye, a Special Area of Conservation.” 

Mark Lloyd, CEO of The Rivers Trust

The operation that began in 2017, which the application structures expand:

• Requires massive feed trucks that damage hedgerows and banks navigating narrow lanes while bringing in (excess) nutrients in the form of animal feed concentrates, several times a week;

"The delivery of concentrates and the arrival and departure of stock means that there is much disturbance by lorries on the narrow roads leading to the farm...this would not seem to be a suitable method of farming in a National Park especially at this altitude and in this location on steeply sloping land... furthermore we consider that the import of excessive nutrients to the farm, and the general overstocking of the fields with the resultant effects on soil quality and water quality are contrary to Policies 13 (Soil Quality) and 10 (Water Quality) of the LDP."

Elizabeth Gibbs, Brecon Beacons Park Society

• Has indoor animal density that creates a huge volume of manure and effluent that is heaped in leaching, foetid mounds before being spread on impermeable ground - uphill and only meters away from a spring with direct hydrological clinks to the riverine tributaries of the river Wye and within its catchment area, designated a Special Area of Conservation. 

"The farm has been subject to a number of relatively recent applications... neither [application] supplied detailed justification for their use, yet it was evident during the site visit that all buildings were in full use for livestock accommodation"

BBNPA funded report by Ieuan David Williams of Reading Agricultural Consultants, 'Independent Agricultural Advice in Relation to Planning Applications for Covered Yard Areas for Sheep Handling'

• Has outdoor animal density that also results in manure and liquid waste being deposited directly on overstocked, bare, compacted and impermeable ground which further compounds this problem and contributes to an increased risk of pollution and flood risk downstream during the extreme weather events we are all experiencing more frequently. 

"...the BBNPA’s drainage advisor observed that the farm’s soil is insufficiently permeable to allow infiltration of run-off from the buildings and accepted that the surface water will be discharged to the nearby watercourse"

Helen Hamilton BA Hons, member of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, the U.K. Environmental Law Association and the Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management, Planning adviser to the Environmental Law Foundation and the Herefordshire Campaign to Protect Rural England

• Necessitates industrial scale metal buildings completely at odds with local architecture and landscape and which illuminate the night sky in this protected Dark Skies area.

The current judicial review challenge has now received permission from the court to proceed to a full hearing and seeks to achieve a third quashing of these controversial planning permissions.

In a wider context, the group seeks to halt the Authority’s seemingly determined divergence from the Park’s core values as documented and to hold it to its (mandated) duty to protect the landscape, enhance the biodiversity of the National Park and support sustainable farming practices.

"...[this] operation commenced in 2017, since when the  [BBNPA] has granted permission for two new large buildings on the farm, prior to the current applications. The [BBNPA] did not carry out Habitats Regulations screening or assessment for either of these applications and has never carried out any assessment of the impact of the project as a whole on the SAC"

Helen Hamilton BA Hons, member of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, the U.K. Environmental Law Association and the Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management, Planning adviser to the Environmental Law Foundation and the Herefordshire Campaign to Protect Rural England

The widely publicised disaster of 23 million chickens housed on the banks of the Wye, depositing waste that has all but killed the river, did not happen overnight. Without intervention, the relevant government bodies run the risk of sleep-walking into further environmental catastrophe in the form of intensive sheep processing.

Natural Resources Wales, supporting evidence for application site cross compliance report

Units like the one at the centre of these applications under legal challenge: where tens of thousands of animals are fed predominantly on concentrates and kept away from public view in cramped buildings and - just as with some big brand ‘free-range’ chicken – only turned out occasionally onto an inadequate amount of bare ground.

By definition, a factory farm entails intensive rearing, with the livestock in close proximity... The old rule of farming .. is that “a sheep’s worst enemy is another sheep”

John Lewis-Stempel

Animal welfare and misery may not (reprehensibly) be a material planning consideration but minimising environmental harm is and it is unlawful to allow development that would pose further risk to the River Wye.   

Planning authorities, especially those, like the BBNPA, operating within a national park, must prioritise this.

It is one of the most critical and relevant issues of our times.

“The severe ecological collapse of the iconic River Wye is one of the great environmental scandals of our times”

Charles Watson, Chairman and Founder of River Action

What is the next step in the case?

The BBNPA has declined the invitation to concede on the grounds set out in a Pre-Action Protocol letter.

Having made an application to the High Court to challenge these planning decisions in court, permission has been granted to proceed to a full hearing.

National Parks have the highest level of protection under the law. FOBMS are seeking permission from the Court of Appeal to include all grounds in the hearing because all the laws, rules and policies the BBNPA has a duty to apply to development should apply to all planning applications.

Thanks are due to Daniel Stedman-Jones and Jake Thorold of 39 Essex Chambers, Richard Buxton Solicitors and planning and environmental consultant Helen Hamilton who continue the fight to halt the Authority’s seemingly determined divergence from the Park’s core values. It is time to say no to planning approvals that allow intensification by stealth and with impunity.

How much needs to be raised?

The initial fundraising target is £20,000 to contribute to this next stage of the challenge.

Representatives of the Park Authority say “There is nothing unique or special about [the] location” of these applications.

Our legal team disagrees. The location is special and afforded protection under policy and law on account of

• it being at 280m elevation in a National Park 
• the NP Area being an International Designated Dark Skies Reserve
• having five listed buildings and a scheduled Ancient Monument within 1km 
• being adjacent to two SSSIs - Black Mountains SSSI immediately to the north (in unfavourable condition) and Strawberry Wood SSSI to the south. Air Pollution Information System readings show ammonia and nitrogen depositions worsening for both since industrial scale developments began on the application site in 2017 
• being visible from and within 60m of the Beacons Way and the Offa’s Dyke Path, and having a Right of Way running through it 
• lying within the catchment of the River Wye Special Area of Conservation

Please pass on a link to this page to anyone who may be interested in protecting the environment and helping Make a National Park Authority do its Duty. Don’t let another key Authority off the hook.

Thank you for your support.