Cross Hands meat plant gets go-ahead (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Cross Hands meat plant gets go-ahead

2:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 in Blackburn Rovers & Premier League Table & Results

COUNTY planners have given the go-ahead for a new meat plant on the Cross Hands Business Park – despite residents’ fears of increased noise and light pollution.

The planned factory – situated at Cross Hands Business West – will also be located close to the habitat of the protected Marsh Fritillary butterfly, members of the planning committee were told.

Objecting to the proposal, Pontarddulais Road residents Derek Rees and Dr Ann Downing said it would have an adverse effect on the lives of people living nearby.

“We’re all painfully aware of the damaging effects of food firm development,” said Dr Downing.

“The local community gains nothing from an ecological, environmental and sociological point of view – but it suffers these damaging effects.

“It’s about time something was channelled back into the local area – anyone who walks close to the Dawn Meats factory will know that the rubbish strewn around there is disgusting.”

And commenting on Carmarthenshire county council’s noise assessment, which concluded the impact of the new plant would be ‘negligible’, she pointed out it was taken at 6pm when traffic on the nearby A48 was at full flow.

“The same sort of volume would not be true at night,” she added.

Mr Rees, who said his family had been disturbed by low frequency noise emanating from the refrigeration units at Dawn Meats, said it was “occasionally deafening” – but council officers had suggested it was caused by his own fridge.

“I’m not kept awake in the early hours of the morning by my fridge,” he said. “The noise is unbearable.”

Agent Ceri Griffiths said the factory site and a service yard for lorries had been moved further north to lessen its impact on residents and added that an acoustic fence would also reduce noise nuisance.

“We remain confident that this development will not create additional noise,” he said.

“ We have made every effort to try and mitigate the effects of noise nuisance. However, this is a food plant on an industrial site and some effects are inevitable.”