Pigs and poultry intensive farming: environmental permits

If you rear pigs or poultry, or both, you may need an environmental permit. You must apply for a bespoke environmental permit to rear pigs or poultry intensively in an installation if you have more than:

You are breaking the law if you operate without a permit when you should have one.

The Environment Agency’s pre-application advice service can give you free information on:

It can also give you enhanced advice for more complex requests. This is a service you must pay for.

Prepare your intensive farming permit application

Before you apply for an intensive farming permit, you must do all the following.

You must begin by requesting an ammonia screening assessment from the Environment Agency before:

After the ammonia screening assessment has been completed, the Environment Agency will tell you if you need to produce a detailed modelling assessment of ammonia emissions to support your application. 

You do not need to complete an ammonia screening assessment if you are:

You must submit your permit application within 6 months of your ammonia screening assessment to make sure the data remains current.

You must produce a written management system. This is a set of procedures that identifies and minimises the risks of pollution.

You must do an environmental risk assessment to check the potential effects of your installation on air, water, land and your neighbours.

See the guidance on how to do an intensive farming risk assessment.

Plan to avoid and control emissions to air, water and land

See the guidance on how you must design your installation to control and monitor emissions.