Border gamebird business fails in latest planning bid

Gamekeeper and bird rearer Gareth Morgan was previously refused permission for an existing worker’s caravan and barn at Nacklestone Farm by the River Teme near Leintwardine, on the Shropshire/Herefordshire border. 

In October 2023, he applied for permission to use adjoining land for rearing game birds and for egg production, including more sheds and fenced enclosures.

A statement accompanying Mr Morgan’s application said his Black Bridge Game business involved producing over 33,000 gamebird eggs in a season, hatched off-site, rearing 1,200 partridge chicks to serve as laying stock along with a thousand pheasant chicks, with the hens being kept as layers, the cock birds sold to a local shoot.

“Also I have reared a number of geese for Christmas for the table, along with a small number of quail,” it says.

“I have also had problems on several occasions with somebody opening a shed and letting birds out, which I have just managed to catch and return to pens,” his statement adds. “Now fitted CCTV to try help.”

Leintwardine Parish Council said it could not support his bid, as there had been no consent to change the land use, there was no assessment of ecological impact on the adjacent River Teme, a site of special scientific interest, nor was there information on how waste from the intensive game rearing was to be managed.

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust also called the application “incomplete and misleading”.

Planning officer Emma Aram said Mr Morgan had failed to show his proposal would “not have an adverse impact on the character and appearance of the open countryside, highway safety or the River Teme catchment”.

Full planning permission was refused.

Mr Morgan now has the option of appealing against this decision also.

Herefordshire Council has meanwhile been asked whether it intends to take enforcement action against the business.