Valley Park Farm in St Arnaud have until May 8 to appeal the Northern Grampians Shire Council’s decision to reject their permit to VCAT.
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The council rejected the farm’s retrospective planning permit on March 5 after the council was recommended to approve the planning permit.
“Council made its decision based upon a number of factors, including environmental concerns, and felt this decision was in the best interest of our ratepayers,” Northern Grampians Shire Council’s mayor Tony Driscoll said.
Valley Park Farm supply free range eggs to Woolworths and Coles in Victoria. The farm forms part of a greater network of farms across the state.
The Northern Grampians Shire was first notified about the farm in St Arnaud’s on December 2016.
The farm was operating without a permit. The planning permit department of the NGSC wrote when they contacted the farm about their lack of permit, Valley Park Farm claimed they did not know they needed a permit to operate the farm, as it was formally Goldfields Turkeys.
Valley Park Farm sort external advice and applied for a retrospective planning permit in August 2017.
The key issues in obtaining a permit for the farm, in the Northern Grampians Shire’s report, was the purpose of the farm.
Valley Park Farm’s were seeking a retrospective permit that would allow use and development of land for Intensive Animal Husbandry for free range layer hen farm with 50,000 birds and egg production and associated buildings and works.
Issues were also raised about the potential impact on the area including the farm’s electrical fencing, the dust, odour, drainage and flooding.
Margaret and Graham Petrie, who live near the farm, said they “have nearly been driven off their property, because the smell from the chook farm is so bad”.
The noise from the farm’s fans “is worse than a truck and sound like a plane taking off,” they also said. “The farm has no thought for us at all.”
Numerous organisations were consulted about the free range egg farm and most of those organisations said they had no concerns about the farm.
But the EPA and NCCMA wrote while they have no concerns about the farm, they have recommended conditions relating to the runoff and protection of the waterway.
