04-03-2025
Dorset councillors back abattoir reopening and expansion plans
Plans to reopen and expand an abattoir have been backed despite some residents concerns over traffic and light and noise pollution. The facility at Mangerton Lane in Bradpole, Dorset, had been shut for a year but has been acquired by Shropshire-based Pickstock Telford former farm site was first converted to abattoir use in the early local farmer told councillors the area needed the abattoir to be reopened and that its use would be better for animal welfare, avoiding having to transport them long distances.
Dorset Council's area planning committee voted almost unanimously in favour of the plans, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Simon Christopher backed the animal welfare argument, but welcomed the additional jobs that reopening and expanding the business would committee heard the new operators would be increasing the size of buildings on the site, adding to security and making changes to the car would also install a 3m (9.8ft) timber acoustic fence and add to the landscaping to the northern and eastern boundary, which would create a biodiversity net gain.
Objector Elizabeth Harrop said she accepted that there will be an abattoir on the site but wanted a smaller multi-species said residents nearby would suffer extra noise, light and pollution – and would have to put up with what she described as "juggernauts" every few minutes in peak Christine Le Lievre described the proposal as: "Replacing the corner shop with a hyper-market and all the nightmare logistics that entails."
Farmer Robert Bowditch, from Beaminster, backed the told councillors that local farmers had missed having a local slaughterhouse and "we are currently sending cows a long way which we don't like" adding that it was "important to provide jobs here for people who are born here".The meeting heard that there had been 95 objections to the proposal and two in told the meeting that lorry size would be limited to the current HGV national standard which had not been objected to by highway officers.
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