First commercial onshore salmon farm given the go ahead despite animal welfare concerns
6 June 2025
This was an application for judicial review brought by an animal welfare charity challenging North East Lincolnshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the UK’s first full commercial scale onshore salmon farm proposed by AquaCultured Seafood Ltd. The farm, to be built in Cleethorpes, is designed to produce 5,000 tonnes of salmon per year.
The High Court had dismissed the application on paper in March 2025. However it was subsequently decided that Animal Equality’s challenge could proceed on the grounds that there was an arguable case that North East Lincolnshire Council’s planning officers had misdirected the Planning Committee by advising that animal welfare concerns could not be considered as material planning considerations under planning law. This potential misdirection raised a legal question about whether the approval of the salmon farm was lawful, warranting a full judicial review of the decision.
Arguments before the court
Animal Equality highlighted risks of welfare issues, such as the pain and suffering felt by animals kept in highly packed units, being eaten alive by sea lice; mass fish deaths including cannibalism and other problems such as high effluent levels in recirculating aquaculture systems. They referred to the deaths of 1.5 million fish at another onshore facility due to electricity supply interruptions. The Claimant did not seek to persuade the Court that the committee were required to take animal welfare concerns into account, rather that they should properly have been advised that it was open for them to do so if they wished to. They maintained that the Council’s planning committee members had been materially misled in relation to animal welfare concerns when the committee was advised that it could not take animal welfare concerns into account.
The Council and supporters of the project emphasised the economic benefits, including job creation and investment in the local area.
Some councillors and residents raised concerns about the farm’s environmental impact, water use, waste production and energy consumption.
Outcome of this judicial review application
Deputy High Court Judge Karen Ridge ultimately upheld the Council’s decision to grant planning permission, allowing the salmon farm to proceed. However, she indicated that animal welfare issues could be considered as material factors in future planning decisions, marking an important point for future cases involving animal welfare and planning law
Ridge J found that, although there was an arguable case that animal welfare concerns could be material planning considerations and that the Council’s planning officers may have misdirected the committee, this did not render the approval unlawful in this instance.
“Whether a particular consideration is material for the purposes of section 70(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires firstly, consideration of whether it is a consideration capable of being material for planning purposes in that it relates to the character of the use of the land. That question is a matter of law for the Court in the event of disagreement. There is none here. The second question is whether the consideration should be taken into account in the circumstances of the particular application and that is a matter for the decision maker, subject to review on grounds of Wednesbury reasonableness.”
The judge noted that a planning committee is not required to have regard to, or to disregard, animal welfare concerns but it could “legitimately chose to disregard such concerns.”
Comment
In Law Pod UK Episode 217 we considered the status and significance of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 and the effect it would have on implementation of government policy. Fish as vertebrates are included under the protective umbrella of that Act. However, the Act does not specifically require that animal welfare is a material consideration in individual planning decisions, such as the granting of planning permission by local authorities. Its focus is on central government policy-making, not on statutory duties for local planning authorities or on the planning process itself. While the Act may influence broader policy guidance, it does not impose a direct legal requirement for local planning committees to treat animal welfare as a material planning consideration. But this case does signal a change in the direction of travel; indeed it is the first documented High Court case to examine the role of animal welfare in planning decisions for intensive farming of animals in the UK. One of the Councillors at the meeting in June 2023 observed that whilst he was “‘not making an objection on the moral issues’, he wanted to “point out that battery cages for laying hens are now illegal in the UK, farrowing crates for pigs are effectively being phased out across Europe and invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and octopuses are now classed as sentient beings. there is a move to recognising sentient creatures. If the proposal is akin to other well-established intensive farming methods then the full aspects of that must be considered.”
Whilst the specific challenge was dismissed, and the farm will go ahead, this case sets a precedent for animal welfare as a material consideration in future planning applications.
