Pigs and poultry intensive farming: environmental permits
How to apply for an environmental permit if you rear pigs and poultry intensively, including how to comply with and change the permit.
Applies to England
If you rear pigs or poultry, you may need an environmental permit. You must apply for a bespoke environmental permit to rear pigs or poultry intensively in an installation if you have more than:
- 40,000 places for poultry
- 2,000 places for production pigs (over 30kg)
- 750 places for sows
You are breaking the law if you operate without a permit when you should have one.
Prepare your intensive farming permit application
Before you apply you must do all the following.
Get advice from the Environment Agency
The Environment Agency’s pre-application advice service can give you free basic advice and information on whether your activity may have an impact on protected species and habitats. This can include a free pre-application ammonia screening assessment.
It can also give you enhanced advice for more complex requests – this is a service you pay for.
Find out how to get advice before you apply for an environmental permit.
Produce a written management system
You must produce a written management system – a set of procedures that identifies and minimises the risks of pollution.
See guidance on what a management system must cover.
Confirm your ability as an operator
Check you meet the legal operator and competent operator requirements. This includes:
- your technical competence
- your financial status
- any previous convictions for environmental offences
Do an environmental risk assessment
You must do an environmental risk assessment to check the potential effects of your installation on air, water, land and your neighbours.
See the guidance on how to do an intensive farming risk assessment.
Plan to avoid and control emissions to air, water and land
See the guidance on how you must design your installation to control and monitor emissions.
Plan to meet technical standards
You must meet best available techniques (BAT).
If you are applying for a new permit, you will need to meet the BAT conclusions for the intensive rearing of poultry or pigs. This applies to:
- a new site with new animal housing
- an existing site expanding above the limit and includes both existing and new animal housing
Apply for your intensive farming permit
Download and fill in form part B3.5 – new bespoke intensive farm installation. The form’s guidance explains how to do this.
When you send your completed application form you must also include all the documents listed in the application checklist in section 15 of form part B3.5.
The form and its guidance explain where to send your form and how many copies to include.
Fees and charges
You must pay an application fee when you send your application. There are additional charges for checking some plans and assessments.
If your application is successful, the Environment Agency will charge you an annual ‘subsistence fee’.
See tables 1.14 and 1.19 in the environmental permitting charging scheme for the current charges.
Form part B3.5 explains how you can pay.
Consultations on permit applications
The Environment Agency consults on:
- bespoke permit applications
- other permit applications where it’s appropriate or in the public interest to do so
The Environment Agency will publish a notice of your application, instructions for how other people can comment on it and the application documents on the public register.
Members of the public and anyone interested in the application have 20 working days to comment.
The Environment Agency may also consult other public bodies, for example local authorities, UK Health Security Agency, water companies and Natural England.
If the Environment Agency considers your application to be of high public interest, they may:
- take longer to give you a decision
- carry out an extra consultation on the draft decision
- advertise the application more widely
- charge you more
Keeping sensitive information confidential
The Environment Agency will let people see the information in your application when they consult on it.
You can ask the Environment Agency not to make public any information that is commercially sensitive for your business (such as financial information). You can do this by including a letter with your application that gives your reasons why you do not want this information made public.
The Environment Agency will email or write to you within 20 days if they agree to your request. They will let you know if they need more time to decide.
If they do not agree to your request, they will tell you:
- how to appeal against the decision
- how to withdraw your application
After you apply
The Environment Agency may reject your application if, for example, you have:
- not used the right forms
- forgotten to include the fee or sent the wrong fee
- not provided important information
Examples of insufficient information include:
- the environmental risk assessment not identifying potential pollutants
- the management plan lacking enough detail
The information required is explained in the application form guidance. It depends on the type of application you are making.
Once the Environment Agency is satisfied they have the information and payment required to start assessing your application, they will contact you to tell you that your application is ‘duly made’. This means they are starting the assessment process.
If the Environment Agency needs any more information from you at the assessment stage, they will contact you to tell you what information to send.
If the Environment Agency cannot progress your application any further, they will return it to you. They may keep part of your application charge where they have spent time reviewing your application and requesting information. This is explained in the environmental permitting charges guidance.
Decisions about your permit
The Environment Agency will write to tell you their decision. The time this takes depends on:
- the complexity of the application
- whether they need to consult
- whether they need to ask you for more information so they can complete their assessment
- the number of applications they are dealing with
They usually make decisions on applications within:
- 4 months if you are applying for a new permit
- 3 months if you want to change a permit or cancel it
- 2 months if you want to transfer a permit
They will tell you if your application will take longer.
Appeal a decision
You can appeal if the Environment Agency refuses your application.
Examples of why they may refuse an application are:
- unacceptable environmental risk or damage to habitats or species
- insufficient evidence of operator competence
- inadequate management plans
- requests for information not being responded to
- the site not being in a satisfactory condition, if the application is to cancel (surrender) a permit
You can also appeal if you’ve applied for a bespoke permit and you’re not happy with the conditions.
The decision letter will explain how you can appeal.
The Environment Agency will publish the decision on the public register.
How to comply with your permit
When you get your permit, you must:
- keep to the conditions in your permit
- meet BAT standards
The guidance on how to comply with your intensive farm permit explains the requirements you must meet.
Find out how the Environment Agency will regulate you when you start operating.
Site inspections
Your farm will be inspected regularly to check you are complying with your permit. The frequency of inspections will be based on the environmental risk of your farm.
During an inspection, the assessor will:
- examine your documentation, including reviews and records
- check the installation
- write a report, including findings on compliance with the permit, actions to complete and the date they must be done by
Pig and Poultry Assurance Scheme
Once you’ve had 2 Environment Agency inspections, if you meet extra eligibility criteria you can join the Environment Agency’s Pig and Poultry Assurance Scheme.
If you join the scheme, you will be inspected once a year over a 3-year period. The Environment Agency will do one inspection and a certification body will do the other 2. Where possible, they will do this at the same time as other assurance scheme inspections such as Red Tractor.
Check the guidance on the Pig and Poultry Assurance Scheme for:
- how the scheme works
- who can join
- how to join
- how you’ll be inspected once you join
Change, transfer or cancel your permit
When you’ve got your permit, you can:
- change (vary) the details on it
- transfer it to someone else
- cancel (surrender) it
Find out how to change, transfer or cancel your permit.
Contact the Environment Agency
General enquiries
National Customer Contact Centre
PO Box 544
Rotherham
S60 1BY
Email enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk
Telephone 03708 506 506
Telephone from outside the UK (Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm GMT) +44 (0) 114 282 5312
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Last updated 25 May 2023 + show all updates
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Added a link to more guidance on intensive pig and poultry farm inspections in the 'Site inspections' section.
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First published.