Locals Oppose Plans for Cranswick Giant Egg Incubation Factory in Suffolk

2 Feb

Sally Mittuch outside her local pub in Weybread that was bought by Cranswick

Food company Cranswick has applied for planning permission to build a giant egg incubation factory in Weybread, Suffolk. Plans show that the incubatory will be approximately 9,500 square meters in size. There have been nearly 1,400 objections which quantifies the strength of feeling against these plans. [1]

Locals from Weybread Community Group have put forward a much more popular alternative that would see services put in for 40 self-build eco homes, instead of the proposed factory and 7 homes. [2]
Cranswick first caused an uproar with locals when they bought out the local pub, The Crown Inn, which shut in 2015. Initial plans showed it would be demolished for an access road which then changed to being converted into two homes, but neither happened and it is now listed for sale. Residents say they sorely miss their local pub in a village with no amenities and are attempting to protect it as a community asset. [3]
The local MP for Waveney Valley, Adrian Ramsay, is supporting locals in their campaign against the egg incubator unit and in favour of the eco self-build home proposal.
There is a water moratorium in place in the area restricting all new water supplies to domestic and social use only until 2033, which locals are concerned Cranswick’s plans might be in breach of. [4]

Weybread locals have been out campaigning strongly against proposals for a Cranswick egg incubator facility on the site of a derelict slaughterhouse. Communities Against Factory Farming (CAFF) have been supporting the campaign.

CAFF tried to submit a formal objection to the egg incubation unit, but the council did not allow it. Despite the applicant submitting new environmental and flood risk information on 18/9/25 and a new site plan that removes the pub refurbishment on 13/10/25, the council has re-consulted only with statutory consultees and is refusing to accept further public objections. CAFF believes this is unfair, and undemocratic.

Locals are concerned that due to the previous industrial use as a slaughterhouse there is a significant risk of land contamination, including heavy metals, various chemicals, and suspected asbestos. Despite this, the applicant has said that there is no land where contamination is suspected for all or part of the site.

CAFF has helped locals overturn planning permission for multiple intensive animal facilities, including two poultry houses on the Staffordshire-Shropshire border, after a legal challenge claiming there were deficiencies in the council's assessment of environmental impacts and animal welfare concerns. [5] There is hope from locals that a similar approach can be taken in this case, should the council approve the plans.

Sally Mittuch, 59, from Weybread, a Company Director, said:

“Weybread residents have already put up with the nuisance of the slaughterhouse for 50 years. Now we’ve had 6 years of dereliction at the hands of Cranswick; they’ve bought the Crown Inn, and boarded up houses. Weybread is a remarkably beautiful village along the River Waveney, with a beck, lakes, heaths, marshes, grasslands, and water meadows; all teeming with wildlife. Now we deserve something truly wonderful to enhance the village, to rebuild the community and to enhance opportunities for wildlife and nature recovery! After all this, our village deserves something really great - the solution is to return the pub to its former glory and the proposal for eco homes, not this monstrous egg incubation factory. This is a village, our village, and not an industrial park.”

Maya Pardo, Legal Coordinator for CAFF, said:

“This industrial facility would churn out millions of fertilized eggs on a 13-18 day cycle, up to 15 million at any one time. The fertilised eggs would then be shipped back to farms and placed by robots on litter beds to hatch and spend the majority of their life suffering unnaturally indoors. It’s not just about the scale of the processes and the fate of the chickens though, the locals have already lost their cherished pub and are rightly very concerned about the impacts of pollution, traffic and the industrialization of their rural village.”

“If we are to meet national targets for reducing particular pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our food security, we need to be moving away from intensive animal agriculture rather than creating new assets that risk financial lock-in. Factory farming is not a sustainable form of development, it comes with significant costs to animals, local residents and the wider environment.”

Adrian Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley

“I fully support the strong opposition to this industrial factory from my constituents in Weybread and beyond, and back their proposal for 40 eco homes that is a much better alternative. In order to help address the cost of living crisis, we need more eco and affordable homes, and whenever possible on brownfield sites just like this one. We must also support the retention and protection of community assets, like the Crown Inn, and I hope residents are able to gather at their pub again soon.

“The giant incubator facility is not just an insult to the residents, but also to the crucial goals of a sustainable local food system and the recovery of nature. Industrial factory farming is destroying the countryside, undermining smaller farmers and the negative impacts will be felt far wider than the confines of the village. The chicks from here would go on to live very short lives on intensive farms, meaning lots more lorries through our villages. They would also bring a big demand on land for feeding them that could instead be used for growing food for people, and produce enormous amounts of manure that will harm our rivers and ecosystems.”

ENDS

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