Lincolnshire County Council has granted planning permission for a £115 million anaerobic digestion facility in the village of Anwick, near Sleaford, that will process up to 120,000 tonnes of chicken waste and other material each year to produce biogas.
The developer, Stream BioEnergy UK, received approval in principle from the council's planning committee last month, with final planning conditions signed off on Monday. The council said 447 public objections had been lodged against the application.
The plant will be built on land adjacent to the existing Pilgrim's Europe chicken processing factory (formerly Moy Park) in the village.
Plans include eight digester tanks, each 25 metres high, sited approximately 200 metres from the nearest homes. Stream BioEnergy said landscaping would help screen the facility and that odour would be tightly managed.
The company added the project would reduce HGV movements through the village by approximately 50,000 per year by allowing chicken waste from the neighbouring factory to be processed on site, rather than transported elsewhere.
It described the investment as supporting Lincolnshire's agri-food sector and said it had worked closely with the county council to put "robust controls" in place to protect residents' quality of life.
The decision was met with vocal opposition. During Monday's committee meeting, a member of the public was escorted from the chamber after repeatedly interrupting proceedings, shouting that he was "disgusted" by the decision and describing the scale of the scheme as "unthinkable," the BBC reported.
Councillor Mervyn Head, who represents Anwick, told the BBC the plant was "in the wrong location" and predicted it would be "a disaster, particularly for the people living closest."
He said: "No matter how good you are at controlling smell, it's never 100%. Anaerobic digestion plants always leak."
Head added that residents already experienced odour, noise and traffic from the existing chicken processing factory. "The whole thing for me has been a complete farce from start to finish," he said.
Reporting by the Local Democracy Reporting Service via the BBC.
