Council agrees to overturn plan for inland salmon farm following legal challenge

In a judicial review claim filed with the High Court in June 2026, campaign group Communities Against Factory Farming (CAFF) raised concerns with animal welfare on the farm and the potential impacts to the River Avon.

Now, the council has written to CAFF agreeing to overturn its decision to grant planning permission for the farm’s infrastructure.  

Plans for the re-purposing of a former trout farm near Downton were initially given the go-ahead in May 2026, when the council approved a canopy to cover concrete tanks which would house salmon. 

CAFF said plans for the farm did not adequately consider the welfare of the fish it would house, which it argued should be a given for any development which would see animals living onsite. 

The group believed it likely the development would result in salmon being kept in poor conditions.  

As well as animal welfare issues, CAFF raised concerns over how waste from fish faeces would be managed, and the potential impacts on the environment. 

CAFF said expert advice had warned that an application for an industrial fish factory farm so close to the River Avon Special Area of Conservation could pose serious threats to wildlife. 

The group highlighted that in order to operate the Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS), a large amount of chemicals would need to be pumped in, which could end up in the River Avon, along with waste and sludge produced in the facility. 

CAFF also said key assessments in the planning application were missed, which the council failed to address when granting the project permission. 

After sending a legal letter to Wiltshire Council, CAFF filed a judicial review claim contesting the decision to grant the development approval. The grounds of claim included: 

• The council failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA), and provided no reasons for this. 
• The council failed to assess the impacts of sludge stemming from fish faeces. 
• The council failed to consider animal welfare, and provided no reasons for this. 

The council has now written to CAFF’s legal team at Leigh Day agreeing to the quashing of the decision because of the failure to carry out an EIA. 

Maya Pardo, legal coordinator at CAFF, said: 

“It was deeply irresponsible of Wiltshire Council to approve this new type of industrial exploitation without properly assessing how the River Avon might be affected. An intensive onland fish farm could spell death for the Avon, with chemicals and waste flowing into bodies of water that are already in poor health because of all the waste and sludge from factory farming. 

“The application was missing key documents, so failed to prove that rivers, air quality and animal welfare could be protected. Something as huge as this industrial mega development should not have been decided by one person. 

“It is therefore a huge relief that the council has now acknowledged its error and stopped this intensive fish farm expanding.” 

Leigh Day partner Ricardo Gama, who represents CAFF, said: 

“CAFF believes the plans at Downton are part of an ever-increasing expansion of factory farming in the UK. Their view is that conditions for farmed salmon in coastal areas are appalling, and so it’s hard to imagine that they could be any better reared in inland pools in Wiltshire. 

“In this claim for judicial review, CAFF argued that planners had failed to take into account the welfare of the salmon, as well as the significant environmental impacts of the scheme. This is in spite of very clear recent caselaw that those impacts must be assessed for intensive agricultural schemes such as this. 

“CAFF is therefore pleased that the council has agreed to a rethink.”