Friends of the Earth has no policy against the use of polytunnels in England and Wales and accepts that there are some sound horticultural arguments for using them.  There are many different types and sizes of polytunnels but the ones which have been causing many of the recent arguments are the very large-scale polytunnels known as ‘Spanish polytunnels’.  These are linked rows of 12-foot high tunnels that cover entire fields without a break. They are erected in the same place over soft fruit often for years on end.  Without proper controls some of the best landscapes in the country have been blighted and watercourses damaged. Uncontrolled they make life for some people and communities, like the residents of the tiny hamlet of Wickton in Herefordshire, a complete misery.  A widely publicised code of practice, which used to be promoted by the soft fruit industry and the NFU in an effort to avoid the planning regime failed to deal with the problems the polytunnels caused. 

Enforcing planning controls is not going to significantly reduce their numbers or increase the amount of imported food, but it will ensure that the soft fruit industry isn’t allowed to ruin the best of the lowland landscapes and has to give more consideration to their potential impact on local residents and the local environment, particularly the watercourses.

Polytunnels also tend to bring with them massive amounts of activity on a farm for 9 months of the year in the form of spraying.  They are labour intensive (compared to arable) and more workers are present all the year round with a big influx of pickers in the May to September period. There have been no problems with the workers at Tuesley Farm near Godalming, but in a few places the sheer numbers involved (which can run into thousands) bring stresses and strains to very small rural communities with limited local services.  Friends of the Earth is concerned that these agricultural workers, usually from overseas, are not exploited, are paid what they are entitled to, including overtime and without unlawful deductions and they are looked after properly in decent accommodation and access to medical services.     

Another concern for the Friends of the Earth campaigners is the amount of plastic used to cover the polytunnels – acres and acres of it.  This clearly alters the drainage pattern of an area. Soft fruit is commonly grown on light sandy soil which is very prone to soil erosion.  At Tuesley the soil has turned to pure sand in places and masses of silt is washed off the fields in moderate rainfall.  One local resident involved in the health industry is raising issues concerning the leaching of oestrogen from the plastic into local watercourses, which we will be investigating.  At Guildford and Waverley Friends of the Earth we firmly believe that the impact of these developments on the local watercourses needs to be scrutinized by the Environment Agency before they are allowed.  This was a major reason why we worked so hard to ensure a proper planning application was made because the Environment Agency is a statutory consultee and would have to be consulted prior to the grant of any permission.

The farm is also now at the forefront of applying interesting and innovative systems which lessen the use of feeds and pesticides on conventional crops.  Guildford and Waverley Friends of the Earth welcomes this.  We think it is also a result of the polytunnel campaign because Hall Hunter initially had quite a lot of adverse publicity.  To be sure to get planning permission Hall Hunter has had to demonstrate its ‘environmental credentials’ and environmental sustainability to local residents and councillors.

Tuesley Farm Campaign
Spanish polytunnels - the legal issues and need for planning permission

In 2003 470 acre Tuesley Farm near Godalming, Surrey was bought by Hall Hunter Partnership for fruit farming on and industrial scale.  At the time they were the main supplier of soft fruit to Waitrose. The farm is in a heavily protected area of landscape and literally next to the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  HHP flatly refused to apply for planning permission for these very large structures covering 10 acres each and together covering about 100 acres of countryside at a time on the basis they were not permanent.  The impact the farm was having on the landscape, the environment and some residents, was enormous.  In 2004 Waverley Borough Council took enforcement action against Hall Hunter. 

A member of our local group, Kathy Smyth, who is a solicitor, organised a legal team lead by a QC on behalf of about 80 families.  This team submitted a comprehensive bundle of factual evidence and expert’s reports and argued alongside Waverley Borough Council at an eleven-day public inquiry held in 2005.  The Planning Inspector said Spanish polytunnels did need planning permission.  This was an important point of principle.  He went on to refuse to grant planning permission for the 100-150 acres of polytunnels they wanted at Tuesley.  This was primarily due to their size and overwhelming impact on the protected landscape.  Another reason was the impact on the local highways and footpaths and certain residents.

Hall Hunter decided to appeal against the Inspector’s decision and comprehensively lost in the High Court in December 2006.

Until the failure of the appeal by Hall Hunter in December 2006 the soft fruit industry had been arguing that express planning permission wasn’t needed for these ‘Spanish’ polytunnels on the basis that they were not permanent and were not development.  In fact since a Court of Appeal case called Skerrits involving a large marquee a few years ago it was clear that Spanish polytunnels do need planning permission.  Since Skerrits (if not before) some local authorities like Gloucestershire have always insisted on growers making planning applications but some of the more backward local authorities have not been insisting on this. As a result growers in some areas have been allowed to erect these huge tunnels in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, some are even next to SSSIs.  In Herefordshire in particular the situation has got completely out of control and Spanish polytunnels have been in the same part of the AONB for so long they have got permanent development rights.  The industry also had a second argument based on permitted development rights, which it still clung to even though it had been rejected by at least one planning inspector. 

The Inspector’s decision in December 2005 shook the soft fruit industry.  It began to clamour for government intervention to bring ‘clarity’ to the situation. What the farmers and trade associations were really after was a change to the planning legislation to exempt all polytunnels from any planning controls.  In fact we thought the law was working perfectly well and the existing flexibility was a good thing because there are many different sorts of polytunnels and not all the smaller types need planning permission.

Hall Hunter appealed against the Inspector’s decision but His Honour Judge Jeremy Sullivan in the High Court upheld the Inspector in December 2006.  The Judge decided that the Inspector had correctly applied the legal tests in Skerrits.    This was a significant setback for both Hall Hunter and the rest of the UK soft fruit industry.  With a High Court judge having looked at the issue, the industry could no longer convincingly argue that the legal position of Spanish polytunnels was uncertain and it was now clear that as a general rule this type of polytunnel needed planning permission before it was erected.  While he was at it Judge Sullivan also comprehensively rejected the permitted development argument, which the NFU was still trying to run.

Lawrence Olins, Chairman of British Summer Fruits, (the main trade body of the soft fruit industry) along with a number of leading members of the NFU have been successfully spinning this story for the last 6 months and presenting it as an industry success story.  What the media hasn’t spotted is that they have conveniently dropped their arguments about permitted development rights and the need for the government to change the planning legislation. In November 2007 on BBC Radio 4 Farming Today Olins said that he had accepted that in certain circumstances planning permission is required and that each case had to be judged on its merits.  

That is what we have been arguing for the last 3 years!  Victory is sweet!