Cows in the Countryside

Thank you to our customers and supporters who overwhelmingly supported our recent planning application to change the use of a barn on our farm yard, allowing us to look after cattle in adverse weather and to bring them home when the RSPB’s St. Aidan’s grassland needs to be left free for ground-nesting birds.As an update for you, the farm was represented by Acorus Rural Property Services at a recent planning meeting where councillors voted to give temporary planning permission alongside monitoring after an objector played a recording of cows mooing in a field near his house.

Mooing cow noises played to councillors as meeting takes bizarre turn - Telegraph & Argus

We are hopeful that independently validated noise monitoring, for what would normally be an uncontroversial expansion, will illustrate to the council that our investment in the necessary infrastructure on our existing farm yard and on a farm that has been here for decades is not causing an unreasonable impact on our neighbours.Managing Director Ed Cartwright commented that “We believe that as farmers we are custodians of the countryside, the council’s own agricultural surveyor and environmental health team raised no objections to our plans, and we have also offered to plant more trees to screen the site throughout the year, I am confident that independent monitoring will prove to the council that this is an acceptable proposal.“It does however raise the question of what is a reasonable amount of noise for a resident in the countryside to expect and how a farmer is expected to stop a cow from mooing in a field. Without livestock and the ability for farmers to earn a living the bucolic nature of rural communities would be drastically different, it’s due to the hard work of our farmers and rural businesses that these landscapes and the environment are here for all to enjoy.”What do you think? Join the debate.

UncategorizedSwillington Farm Team