Nocton Dairies controversy

[3] A planning application to North Kesteven District Council was made on 17 December 2009, but after concerns raised by the Environment Agency, was withdrawn on 15 April 2010[4] having already aroused considerable reaction in the media.

A statement released by Nocton Dairies cited the objections of the Environment Agency as the sole reason and raised concerns that facts had been twisted on animal welfare matters.

[18] After concerns were voiced over the potential for pollution of the water aquifer, smells, animal welfare, disease control, security, transport issues and property blight surrounding the site, some local people formed a campaign group named CAFFO.

[20] WSPA (now called WAP) launched a campaign in September 2010 in anticipation of the resubmission of Nocton Dairies' proposal, featuring celebrities including Twiggy, Andrew Sachs, Chrissie Hynde, Jenny Seagrove and a large number of soap stars, and attracted over 25,000 pledges from people around the world that 'factory milk from battery cows' would not be used in their cuppas.

38 Degrees also singled out neighbouring farmers who had been keen to use the 'digestate' (left from the cow manure after anaerobic digestion had taken place) on their arable land as a more sustainable and natural source of fertilisers and to replace essential organic matter.

[24] Other debates range around the potential for a large dairy such as this to improve food security[25] and opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of milk production through better efficiency and the adoption of technology such as anaerobic digestion.

"[32] Supermarket chains Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, as well as online food retailer Ocado, all indicated they did not intend to buy milk from 'super-dairies', while Morrisons and American-owned Asda seemed to support them.

[36] The consortium of opponents of the dairy – Vegetarian International Voice for Animals, The Soil Association, CPRE, Compassion in World Farming, Friends of the Earth, WSPA and local campaign group CAFFO – expressed delight that the plans had been withdrawn when the news was announced on 16 February 2011.

Comments made by at the 2011 NFU conference by food critic Jay Rayner during a panel discussion entitled 'Is modern agriculture palatable?’[41] pointed to the industry being at fault.

Either way, the fact that many farmers are prosecuted by the Environment Agency for pollution or waste offences as they struggle to adhere to constantly tightening regulation, demonstrates that environmental legislation is crucial to the protection of the land where any such development is placed.

Following the withdrawal and refusal of Nocton Dairies' plans, one of the directors, Peter Willes, had to pay over £23,000 when he accepted responsibility for three environmental offences, two of which related to pollution of water courses.

[49] All involved also learned that social media plays an important part in 21st century campaigning as while they had no direct impact on the withdrawal of the application, thousands of supporters were gained via the range of sites named earlier.

However, it also became clear that as well as factual information, a number of myths and untruths were also being propagated over social media – one led to a petition with 15,000 signatures being withdrawn as it falsely claimed hormones and tail docking would form part of the plan,[50] prompting concerns that support generated in this way might contain little substance.