PLANS for an intensively farmed beef unit for up to 750 animals at Rockwood Estate, Brook, have triggered more than 80 objections.

Witley Parish Council has supported objectors and requested the application should be called in for determination by Waverley’s planning committee, rather than under delegated powers.

The proposal is for two cattle sheds more than 100 feet wide, and 21 feet high, a cattle handling shed, a fodder barn, machinery store and a slurry pit, to be located next to the A286 Haslemere Road.

The unit has been designed to hold 250 suckler cows and their calves with 125 cows calving in spring and 125 cows calving in autumn. All calves will be reared to “fat cattle ” to be sold.

Planit Consulting’s design and access statement stated it is essential an agricultural worker is on site “round the clock” to supervise the operation and an application for an agricultural dwelling is also set to be submitted.

“The land holding is substantial amounting to 257 acres but there are currently no farm buildings to serve the needs of the farm land,” the document noted. “There has been considerable recent investment in stock fencing, reseeding and provision of water to the land with the sole aim of developing the farming use of the land.

“We trust the council will be able to agree with the merits of this application proposal and determine it under delegated powers.”

Witley Parish Council’s objection stated it was “impossible” to assess the accumulative impact of the proposal, or analyse and determine the application against public planning policy because of a lack of detail regarding the environmental impact of the development, a possible associated dwelling and an access track,

It also had “concerns” about traffic entering and leaving the site at a “notoriously dangerous junction.”

“We support local residents in their objections” the statement stressed.

The parish council has asked Witley councillor Anna James to request that the application be called in.

An agricultural assessment by consultants A J Marshall stated: “It would not be in the interests of animal welfare to undertake the establishment of a large beef herd without adequate buildings, proper support facilities and an agricultural worker dwelling for the carers responsible for the welfare of the animals on the farm.”

Many respondents have objected to the intensive farming methods proposed in which cattle will be largely kept indoors.

One objector wrote: “The application seeks to confine cows indoors in potentially poor conditions and to deny them their basic natural behaviour of grazing on pasture, yet the surrounding area has previously been use extensively for outdoor grazing of cattle,”

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Other objections claim it will contaminate land and pose a traffic risk.