A MASSIVE bird shed – 120 metres long and 31 metres wide – will be built at Glenrath Farm’s egg-producing complex between Leadburn and Lamancha.

The controversial development at the Whim Poultry Farm was given the go ahead at a meeting of Scottish Borders Council’s planning committee.

Just six members of the nine-strong committee attended for the vote which was 4-1 in favour of granting consent to Scotland’s most prolific egg producer. Stand-in chairman Jim Brown chose not to vote.

Only SNP councillor Donald Moffat sided with objectors which included Lamancha, Newlands and Kirkurd Community Council.

A decision was deferred in March to allow councillors to visit the site and for SBC’s environmental health department to respond to local concerns over noise and dust levels, manure collection and the implications for the hens themselves.

The meeting heard that consent for a similarly-sized shed had been granted in December 2012 on the site of two buildings which had fallen foul of EU regulations banning the use of conventional cages for laying hens. At that time, the committee was told that a “colony system”, accommodating nearly 170,000 birds, would be deployed in the new shed.

Since that consent was granted, the illegal sheds with the cages have been demolished and, according to a report by local planning officer Dorothy Amyes, the firm had been “advised by its main customers that they required more eggs from free range or barn systems”.

A new planning application was required because to replace a colony system with a barn system – reducing the number of birds to 44,000 - would involve “material design amendments”.

Like the other two sheds still in operation at Whim, the new building will be finished in olive green cladding. The complex, west of the A701, also comprises an egg collecting unit, an office block, a laboratory and storage facilities.

Seven individual objectors feared for the impact on a number of residential properties which lay within 250 metres of the new shed, raising concerns over air pollution from manure dust and ammonia, insufficient screening and excessive transport movements.

The community council noted that neither the immediate neighbours nor the care home at nearby Whim Hall had not been consulted on, or informed about, the development.

Despite the reduction in the number of birds, a public meeting held by the community council felt this would not mitigate health concerns relating to emissions and fly pollution. It was felt the firm had other land on which to build the shed that would have less impact on the amenity of neighbours.

In its submission the firm said that 44,000 hens would generate around 1,100 tonnes of dry manure each year – the equivalent of four trailer loads a week.

The new building would incorporate a mechanical ventilation system with chimney-style inlets along the length of the roof to allow air to be drawn inside. Air would be expelled by roof mounted fans at the north-east gable, while an enclosed manure elevator would be sited at the other end of the building.

Feed silos will be located at the north eastern end of the shed and water would be provided from an existing borehole.

The committee agreed with environmental health recommendations that conditions relating to the control and management of manure, moving the elevator further away from domestic properties nearby, should be a condition of consent.

Ms Amyes recommended approval, subject to a raft of other environmental conditions.

“Given that there is an existing consent for a replacement shed and that the current proposals have significant advantages over the approved building in terms of lower height, significant reduction in bird numbers and emissions, particularly of ammonia, it is considered the application can be supported,” she said.