Chicken breeder Engelen with 82,000 animals must be shut down. The judge decided this after a long legal tug-of-war between environmental clubs, the province and the poultry farmer. After twelve years, the company on Zandstraat in Someren still does not have a nature permit. According to the province, the company would ultimately receive this, but the court does not share that opinion.
There has been a lot of discussion about the rearing farm in Someren for a long time now. Since 2013, environmental clubs and local residents have been trying to reverse the company’s expansion.
Owner Twan Engelen bought nitrogen space from four surrounding companies in order to expand his company from 39,900 to 82,000 animals. But two of those companies had long since run out of animals. And so no nitrogen was emitted.
The nature clubs did not think it was possible that this dormant nitrogen space would come back to life. They went to court because expansion might not on paper, but in reality it would cause more nitrogen emissions.
The Council of State agreed with them on several occasions. The permit for the new stables was annulled, but because the province expected to be able to issue a permit in the future, Engelen had the stables built anyway.
The zoning plan and the environmental permit were in order, but a nature permit was missing all along.
Unwilling province
All this time, the province did not want to enforce it: the financial consequences for the entrepreneur would be many times greater than the consequences for nature if the company continued to exist. “If we do not get a permit, we will have a big problem. The bank wants to see money, but if we have no income we will go bankrupt,” Engelen said in an earlier lawsuit.
The environmental clubs thought this was an irresponsible attitude on the part of the province. “The only real solution is to stop the company and compensate the entrepreneur for his animals,” said the De Peel Conservation Working Group Foundation. “The province will not get it legally right in any other way. This is improper administration.”
The court can imagine that the outcome will be difficult for the poultry farming industry to accept, but believes that it simply does not have a nature permit and therefore enforcement is justified.
Poultry farming will be stopped in February after the current rearing round. The province must ensure this by the court.
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