14th November  2008: Hereford Council's Cabinet passed a resolution to introduce a requirement for Planning Permission for polytunnels. See details in the Polytunnel Review Working Group's paper. This big step forward  follows directly from the Tuesley Farm case at Waverley. HC's legal advice was that there was nothing in the Tuesley Farm judgement which was case site-specific to Tuesley Farm (see link for this advice). And under News Update on this web. The recommendation was accepted by Cabinet on 22nd. March 2007.

However, a Supplementary Planning Document for polytunnels (SPD) was requested to assist the planners in reviewing planning applications and - finally - on 14th. November 2008 this was approved by the council's "cabinet". See attached SPD. Very little protection is afforded to public right of ways and residential buildings.

AVRA is not totally opposed to polytunnels - Spanish style "continuous blocks of polytunnels" - or others.
We see a requirement for horticulturists and agriculturists to use these in sensible numbers to enhance their production. They are currently being used to cover strawberries, asparagus, raspberries, cherry trees, blackcurrants etc.. Strawberry production is their main use in North Herefordshire.
Our concern is the blanket cover of large tracts of land with metal and plastic which is a direct result of the use of Spanish style polytunnels, and others.
This has a huge environmental impact on land drainage, river flows, wild life and soil quality. See photo below of Brierley Lane after rain in 2008.

The visual impact is also significant and we see what were once spectacular scenic views blotted with the scourge of many acres of plastic blowing about in the wind.
Polytunnels are Operational Development and should therefore be subject to planning consent.

A recent survey of 21 Planning Authorities confirmed that 86% of them would require planning for a large polytunnel acreage and the remaining 14% would need further details before replying. Why not Herefordshire ?

In January 2006, AVRA petitioned Herefordshire's councillors with our proposals for Polytunnel Planning Requirements (see attached link - Word format for downloading). All comments are most welcome.

Without planning controls fertile areas of the countryside are masked in plastic and within a few years the once fertile soils turned completely sterile due to the over use of chemicals and the absence of contact with wild life/nature. All this for strawberries.
These soils will take many years to recover and meanwhile be useless for agriculture.
The polytunnel keeps the rain off the delicate fruits and therefore off the soil so the use of trickle irrigation [also uncontrolled at present] is necessary. This affects the rivers which depend upon natural run off and

with such intense irrigation there is an effect on the river up- and down stream.

 Rain water from polytunnels

on road in Brierley Lane

AVRA would like to see the polytunnel under the control of the local planning authority, with a simple set of criteria which take a sensible approach to the potential problems.
The Supermarkets are the drivers of this scourge on the countryside as they continuously press suppliers to reduce costs/prices. The suppliers therefore go for cheap labour and economies of scale. The scale of the venture then becomes bigger and bigger and what was originally a fruit farm becomes a vast acreage of plastic covered countryside, at the centre of which is a packing station, a camp for migrant workers working in the fields from 5.00 am onwards, coaches and minibuses ferrying these workers around, and a chilled distribution centre catering for large refrigerated trucks to deliver the vast quantities of product to the supermarkets.

Many counties realise that controls are necessary and have implemented them. Herefordshire Council (HC) also realised that change is necessary to control the situation and  revised its so-called Voluntary Code in 2005 (see Voluntary Code sub-section); however this still does not go far enough.

And HC have no idea of the potential impact of these acres of polytunnels on tourist revenues for the county; no studies have been made - not even for the AONB's in the south of the county. However, their Environment Scrutiny Committee did review the code on 24th. October 2005; answers to questions is interesting reading (see Appendix of the ESC Meeting Report). However despite all this text, unless HC actually act on these words, they are meaningless.

The BBC's reporting of the agreed code lists items which appear to have been ignored by HC ever since (see via this link)

CPRE Herefordshire is also supporting the uncontrolled development of these enormous polytunnel estates. For further details , see cpreherefordshire.org.uk  (look under "Herefordshire Issues" in CPRE's website).
 

Credit to the Hereford MP Paul Keetch who has recently been trying to get government to clarify this alarming situation: See also Paul Keetch's web site (June 2006) for his latest views.

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