Devonshire Poultry submits Wiltshire chicken houses plan

Devonshire Poultry - one of the largest produces in the poultry industry - is applying for permission to extend its poultry houses at West Ashton near Trowbridge.

The move is in response to the demands of consumers and supermarkets - who want higher welfare chickens.

The Honiton-based firm has bred broiler chickens for food since 1991 and has six sites across the UK - including a site at Langley Burrell Farm near Chippenham, where five new sheds powered by roof-mounted solar panels were opened in 2024.

The first poultry houses were built at on the four-hectare Oakstone Farm in the late 1980s and two poultry houses won planning permission in 2003.

According to the planning application, day-old chicks are placed into the houses, with 35 per cent of each flock "thinned" at around day 30 and the remaining birds "removed" by day 42.

Chickens are transported to processing plants, with no slaughtering at any of Devonshire Poultry's sites.

An additional seven to ten days is allocated for cleaning before the next flock arrives. Waste bedding is treated as manure and spread on fields by local landowners.

On average the site produces seven "crops" a year, with 260,000 chickens on site at any one time.

The proposal seeks to extend Poultry House 1 by 279 sq m, Poultry House 2 by 929 sq m, and Poultry House 4 by 948 sq m.

"The extensions to the buildings will not result in an increase in stocking on the holding," say the applicants. "This is due to reduced stocking as a direct result of supermarkets seeking a higher welfare product."

The applicants accepts that noise, smell and flies and vermin are all potential problems but as the number of chickens on site is not increasing there should be no extra risk, it insists.

There are no residences within a 400 metre radius of the site, the applicant notes.

A decision is expected by February 2026.