VILLAGERS can breathe a sigh of relief after plans to open a giant 350,000-chicken broiler farm were withdrawn.

Residents feared the smells of chicken manure would stink out their valley after Ross-on-Wye based Hays Farms applied to open an intensive production unit at Clearwell Farm.

Planners rejected the proposal last July, following hundreds of protests about potential smells, pollution, animal welfare, and even fears that HGV lorries might make the access road collapse into caverns linked to Clearwell Caves.

Hays, which produce 25 million chickens a year at sites all over the country, appealed the decision, but last week it was announced that they had withdrawn the plan for eight steel broiler units.

Jonathan Wright, a director of Clearwell Caves, told councillors in 2016 that the proposed 500-600 heavy lorries a year ferrying birds and manure on and off the Rocks site could cause the land to collapse.

“The cavern beneath the cattle grid is enormous and would swallow a whole building… there are real concerns over the structural safety of the cavern that mean the driver of the lorry or the people caving beneath would be fatally harmed,” he said.

But after hearing that the appeal had been dropped, he said: “It’s good news for the village and its businesses. This area from Clearwell down to Redbrook is special, and it would have been terrible to degrade it when it needs looking after.

“There are underground old iron workings throughout the area. In Bream, they had to stabilise half the village to put the road in. Big 40 ton lorries constantly driving through here would have been entirely inappropriate.

“And the smell was bad enough when a free range chicken farm operated there, and this would have seen far bigger chicken numbers.

“It’s really important for the welfare of the valley and its businesses, which are manly high standard, such as the Tudor farmhouse, and depend on people’s perceptions. A chicken farm like this needs to be put in an area where it’s not going to have such a huge effect on businesses and lives.”

The application in May 2015 saw hundreds of protests to the Forest of Dean Council, ranging from claims that it could breed bird flu, to fears that smells would damage tourist businesses like the village’s caves, where Doctor Who and Merlin have been filmed, Clearwell Castle and Puzzlewood.

Under the plan, hundreds of thousands of young chicks would have been slaughtered after 42 days to make way for more, and after a seven-day cleaning process, lorries would have taken away the droppings to be used as manure in Ross.

Nearly 500 people signed a protest petition organised by Madeleine Deeney, who said at the time: “The thought of 350,000 chickens being kept in such cruel conditions appals me.

“Clearwell is in a beautiful location in the Forest of Dean, and an extremely popular area for families to come on holiday. I feel that the obnoxious smells emanating from the broiler units would have a detrimental effect on tourism, and would greatly affect local people.”

And villager Susan Hamilton Smith said “gut wrenching” wafts from the broiler units could have a “devastating” impact on the local economy.

Planning officers advised councillors to pass the plan to replace a bungalow and existing chicken sheds with the eight broiler units holding more than 40,000 birds each.

But councillors turned it down due to its impact on woodland and a lack of information about the stability of the access road.