Not properly made submission (late) Paul Prentice & Adrienne Prentice MCU12/0184

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          Notes re proposed POULTRY FACTORY at 136 Top Forestry Rd, Ridgewood
          MCU 12/0104                                                                    SCC CORRESPONDENCE




          Attention Kerry Coyle
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                                                                                                 X0048215

          I am a member of the CARA Committee and attended the group’s meeting of 15th                   ~
          August at which this controversial matter was ventilated...and at which you were               l:?’
          present.

          I am writing to you, as promised, not as a representative of CARA but in my personal
          capacity as someone with some real experience of the development of rural
          properties as intensive chicken factories.
          My wife Adrienne & I resided for about 25 yrs in the Paterson valley about 20 mins
          drive north from Maitland in the NSW Hunter Valley. Over a period of time we
          witnessed a very substantial proliferation of the intensive chicken growing industry in
          that locality and according offer to the Council our observations as follows:


          STENCH      At times, especially in hot weather, the whole precinct seemed to radiate a
          most unpleasant odour...such that we sometimes left the area of our home for a
          while for some relief. The home on our farm was about half a kilometre from the
          nearest chicken shed It was not uncommon for visitors to arrive at our home and ask
          "what the hell is that dreadful smell?"
                      Also, when a chicken "farmer" chose to spread his chicken litter on his
          paddock the stench was widespread..Jor as long as it took for it to be subdued by
          rainfall!


          TRUCK TRAFFIC        this use of the land creates a good deal of large-truck
          movements.....delivering the food, possibly extra water, arriving to catch chickens en
          masse then   departing, delivering fresh loads of chicks and departing, etc etc. It is
          important to appreciate that the chicken collection always occurred in the dead of
          night [about 1 am] no doubt this is not something that could be changed by a
          Council condition as it is probably written into the grower’s Contract with his supplier.
          Suffice to say these middle-of -the-night disturbances were not re ived kindly by all
          those disturbed by them.


          DEAD CHICKENS        these were at times a large number...and the growers always
          buried them by digging a large grave...something that worried us from an
          environmental point of view as the catchment inevitably flowed into the Paterson
          River.


          PROLIFERATION      sadly we witnessed a very significant downgrading of the rural
          amenity and character of the beautiful Paterson valley area as one "farmer" after
          another took up this new land-use.....and we eventually decided to leave the area,
          seriously dismayed by the "takeover" by these factories which, we believed, were not
          a RURAL land-use at all.



          COOROY TOWNSHIP             it is hard to imagine that the frequent movement of large
          trucks, servicing EIGHT sheds, through the CBD of Cooroy, will not cause lots of
          distress in various ways!


          We believe that Council will need to consider carefully just how much leeway it would
          actually have in terms of regulating and enforcing any Conditions it might seek to