Farmers looking to improve existing facilities are not more likely to get planning approval than if starting off on a green-field site, officials from the NI Environment Agency (NIEA) have said.

Briefing the Stormont Agriculture committee last Thursday, Keith Finnegan from NIEA said he understood the frustration when a replacement building will actually lead to lower ammonia emissions due to new technologies such as flooring systems, scrapers etc.

However, he said ammonia pollution in NI is already at “super high levels” and cited the example of a recent case where current ammonia emissions were in excess of 1,000% of the level that causes damage.

“Now what we have been asked is; if that development reduces by 5 or 10% that should be acceptable, but clearly if we give permission for that, it would lock that pollution in at a level which we cannot then change in the future,” said Finnegan.

He also maintained that the vast majority of replacement developments come with “an element of expansion” and it was “very unusual” to see a replacement shed on the same site with the exact same number of animals as before.

A5

During questions, Strangford MLA Michelle McIlveen urged NIEA officials to commit to look again at the issue of “betterment” (replacement sheds), especially in light of the recent go-ahead for the A5 road project. Around 3,000 acres of prime agricultural land and 314 working farms are impacted by the scheme and it will inevitably cause major disruption to infrastructure on many of these farms.

“There are going to be a number of applications which are going to come through as a consequence of decisions which have been made by the [Stormont] executive,” said McIlveen.

Cases

Back in December 2023, NIEA dropped the guidance it used to assess ammonia emissions from livestock sheds (known as the operational protocol) to instead, give advice to planners around ammonia, on a “case-by-case” basis.

Since then 178 planning consultations have been assessed using this approach, with the agency advising planners it had no air quality concerns in 41 cases, but it did have concerns around air quality in 30 cases. In the remainder, additional information has been requested from applicants, confirmed NIEA chief executive David Reid.

Workforce

During his evidence, Reid also highlighted continued pressure around recruitment in NIEA. In total, it has a workforce of 635, but 147 posts to be filled.

“There is a business impact right across the agency because the shortages are fairly stark at the minute,” said Reid.

However, he confirmed that NIEA is in the process of recruiting additional investigation officers. “From November onwards, when these staff are in post, this will allow us to carry out more investigations and address water quality issues in the Lough Neagh catchment,” he said.