Since the petition delivery last week lots of us have been in touch wondering whats happening now with the mega-dairy plans. A date hasn’t yet been set for a decision, but we’re expecting it to be in early March.

However, the businesses behind the mega-dairy were dealt a blow earlier this week.The Environment agency delivered its submission to the Council, raising its concerns and objection to the plans. This is great news for cows, the enviroment and local farmers.

The Council claim its received an “unprecedented” numbers of comments, possibly hitting 16,000. Only 1900 have been uploaded onto the website so far. Opposition and protest is carrying on in Nocton with a poll in the local area results showing 92% of residents are against the plans.

You can read comments on the Council website here, putting in the reference number:10/1397/FUL

Wow what a delivery! 38 Degrees’ petition to stop Nocton mega-dairy was today delivered to the local Council. The 53,223 member voices were causing quite a stir. Press were buzzing around outside the front of the Council building at 1:30pm. BBC Look North, Lincolnshire Echo and Lincs FM were all keen to get their own story of the delivery.

Members and supporters of the mega-dairy petition turned out in force as well. Which was great! We all found ourselves being jostled around by various camera crews, photographers and radio stations.The hand over itself took place inside the Council building to members of the planning department.

The size of the petition and the press interest today has really turned up the heat on the Council who must be really feeling the pressure. Not rejecting these cow factory farm plans against such strong opposition will be very hard. The petition has a massive number of signatures, but is this just the tip of the iceberg? How many more people heard about these plans via the radio on their way home from work or saw it on the News this afternoon whilst having lunch?

Have you heard any coverage on the new or radio today? It’d be great to hear your thoughts, you can easily leave comment below.

The rest of the pictures will be uploaded onto the 38 Degrees flickr page soon. Here is the press coverage:

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/Super-dairy-consultation-period-comes-close/article-3089813-detail/article.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-12162701

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/11/lincolnshire-mega-dairy?CMP=twt_fd

http://www.lincsfm.co.uk/pages/landing?66000-Sign-Petition-Against-Nocton-Super=1&blockID=388917&feedID=4105

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/01/10/124993/Avalanche-of-objections-to-Lincolnshire-super-dairy.htm

http://www.thisisbusiness-eastmidlands.co.uk/foodandbeverage/64-031-signatures-super-dairy/article-3080075-detail/article.html

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/hot-topics/super-dairies/thousands-oppose-lincs-super-dairy/36425.article

http://www.caffo.co.uk/

Tomorrow is a big day for the “stop Nocton mega-dairy campaign” . It’s the last day of the planning consultation on plans to build the UK’s first cow factory farm.

Since the campaign launched tens of thousands of 38 Degrees members have worked together to persuade one company to drop out and raised enough money, from all of us chipping in, to put ads in the local paper piling pressure on the companies that are still backing the plans for the mega-dairy.

The petition now has over 50,000 signatures and over 6,000 of us have sent personal messages to the Council. Together we’re letting the Council know that these plans are bad for cows, bad for climate change and bad for other farmers.

Tuesday 11th January is the last day we can raise our concerns. It would be great if we could get a few of us there to support the petition hand in. Do you want to come along? If so here is the time and place to meet:

Delivery of the petition is taking place at 1:15pm
We’re meeting outside North Kesteven District Council offices, 33 East Gate, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, NG34 7EF
Map: http://bit.ly/gWrcba

Sign the petition here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/factoryfarm

This campaign is creating lots of press interest. This article was posted up on the Lincolnshire Echo website this morning:
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/64-031-signatures-super-dairy/article-3080075-detail/article.html

There’s just been a big development in our campaign to stop us-style cow factory farms. See the email below which has just gone out:

Breaking news! The companies behind the US-style cow factory farm have just relaunched their plans. Yesterday they came to London to hold a press conference and announced that they want to press ahead with the UK’s first mega-dairy.

We know that the firms behind this project find it hard to ignore public pressure. Earlier this year we forced them to abandon their original plan. Then we got one of the three companies involved to pull out. This week they announced that they will scale back the plans by 50% and offer the cows a small amount of outside space.

That’s progress, and it’s thanks to all of us. But they still want to build the biggest cow factory farm in the UK, with up to 4000 cows kept in grass-free conditions. Farms like this are going to be bad for climate change, bad for cows and bad for other farmers. [1]

If 20,000 of us managed to force the factory farm backers to change their plan, imagine what 50,000 of us could do! We could force the businesses to abandon the plans altogether, and make sure councils block mega-dairies like this from ever being built.

Please forward this e-mail to your friends now and ask them to add to the pressure by signing the petition:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cow-factory-farms

The businesses pushing these factory farm plans hope they’ve got us off their back. They’ve scaled their plans back a bit, and they’ve hired in the spin doctors. Making our petition even bigger is our best response. If we get even more names on the petition, that will prove to the factory farmers, the media, and local councillors that we are not going away.

Together we’re proving that people power works. When we started, few people expected us to be able to stop the mega-dairy being built. But since then we’ve built a 20,000 strong petition, we’ve raised money for hard hitting ads in the local paper, we’ve got one of the businesses to drop out and the others to scale back their plans. Now let’s prove that we’re not going to stop until these plans are abandoned, by making our petition even bigger.

Please forward this email to your friends and ask them to help stop this US-style factory farm by signing the petition here:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cow-factory-farms

Thanks for being involved,

Hannah, David, Johnny and the 38 Degrees team

P.S. You can see how many people have already signed the petition, and add your own name if you haven’t already, by clicking here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/stop-cow-factory-farms

We did it! Together hundreds of us chipped in to pile pressure on the two companies (Blankney Estates &EM Howard Ltd) who are still supporting the Nocton cow factory farm.

The ads are already working. Just before the newspaper went to press yesterday we got a call from the Lincolnshire Echo. One of the companies had been in touch with them after they heard the ads were coming. Because of the pressure from the company we had to make some quick changes to the ad.

If you want to contact the companies you can find out how to here.

The ads will run today and tomorrow.

Update: 1 – sorry something went a bit wrong there with the image. Here’s a second try! You can view the ad as an image here or download it as a pdf here.

Over the last few days hundreds of 38 Degrees members have donated to pay for ads in the Lincolnshire Echo asking EM Howard Ltd and Blankney Estates Ltd if they’re still backing the Nocton cow factory farm. The ads will appear on Friday and Saturday (we’ll update the blog with images as soon as we can).

Earlier this week one of the companies backing the project, Patrick Dean Ltd, pulled out because of  ”unwelcome public attention”.

You can ask EM Howard Ltd and Blankney Estates Ltd why they’re still backing the mega-dairy. All their details are below:

E M Howard Ltd
Nocton Rise, Lincoln LN4 2AF
Tel: 01522 797 121
Email: robert@emhoward.co.uk

Blankney Estates Ltd
Estate Office, Blankney, Lincolnshire LN4 3AZ
Tel: 01526 320 181
Email: michael.parker@blankney.com

If you get through do share what they say in the comments below.

Update 1: we made it! Thanks to the 458 people that donated £5000 so now we can get the ads in the paper. I’ll update the blog with more details one the ad is ready!

Update 2: You can view a scan of the ads here.

Our campaign to stop cow factory farms just had a big breakthrough, we’ve forced one farmer to pull out and now the whole project is at risk.

Right now all the businesses involved are thinking “is the public criticism worth it? Should we quit too?” If we can convince them the pressure is only going to get worse, they’ll be more likely to cave in and the factory farm project will collapse.

Businesses use local papers all the time to boost their reputation and publicise their businesses. If we all chip in we could take out ads in local papers exposing their involvement with the controversial factory farm, just as they’re wondering if they should pull out.

If we can raise £5000 by 3pm today we can take out full page adverts in the local paper shaming the companies still involved. Donate here.

You can donate securely on this page. We use encryption, just like your bank does, to make sure your details are kept safe.

Big dairy farmers are making plans to build an industrial size dairy farm, which will house over 8000 cows. It would be the largest farm within the UK and the animals are kept in harsh conditions.  With so many cows housed on one farm, there is a serious risk of mistreatment, which could lead to spread of disease. Some people are calling it a “battery chicken farm for cows”. We’re building a petition against these farms going ahead – click here to sign it: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/no-megadairies

These huge farms, or ‘megadairies’ also produce a massive amount of waste (which would especially affect those living nearby), as well as raising emissions of greenhouse gasses. People are worried about the quality of the milk that is produced, as the cattle would not be eating grass, but spending all their time inside, living off processed feed.

The fears are that this would have a massively negative effect on the current diary production in the UK. It would mean that more responsible dairy farmers could be squeezed  out of business and the UK would be heading down the road of huge, industial farms, similar to those in the USA.

Last year, 170 MPs signed an early day motion in opposition to the plans.  But together we need to keep the pressure on, to make sure that the new plans for the farms don’t go ahead in Lincolnshire. Sign the petition to Lincolnshire County Council here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/no-megadairies/