PIG SICK: Brit expat couple in Spain furious over piggery plans

AN ALBOX couple are furious about plans to reopen a pig farm in front of their home.

Paul Griffin and Luisa Fernandez claim the smell, noise and flies which the piggery will create will be a most unwelcome nuisance which will affect their daily lives and will devalue their property, which has been in Luisa’s family for five generations.

“This affects your physical and your emotional health”, Luisa told the Euro Weekly News.

While acknowledging the farm was used for rearing pigs from the 1980s up until about six years ago, Luisa said this time it looks set to be a significantly bigger concern and will now be an intensive piggery.

Many other local residents also oppose the pig farm, Paul and Luisa say, 350 people having signed their petition to stop it opening.

Jenny Spear is one of the couple’s neighbours, her property separated from the pig farm by just a track. Jenny “wasn’t all that bothered” when she first found out the pig farm was reopening, she told the Euro Weekly News, assuming it would be a “nice little pig farm” as before.

“But then they started increasing its size and now it’s double the size it was: that really bothers me.

“From everything I’ve been told it’s not going to make the people living close to it very happy because there are going to polluting smells and the pigs are going to make a horrendous noise because they’re going to be battery.”

Paul and Luisa claim the local council has failed to respond adequately to their requests for information about the plans and licences related to the piggery project, although Town Hall Secretary Eva Cano disputes this.

Commenting to the Euro Weekly News on Paul and Luisa’s petition she said they had every right to collect signatures opposing the piggery plans. But she insisted the pig farm project was all in order.

According to the Town Hall Secretary the local authority has received full information about the breeding operation and it is has all the necessary permits and authorisation from the Andalucia regional government, which says everything is correct in terms of land use, documentation and compliance with current regulations.

She also made it clear however the council will carry out another inspection to check the activities carried out on the farm are in accordance with the original stated intentions and don’t go beyond the licence and authorisations issued by the council for pig breeding or works included in the project.

According to Eva, the “bad luck” for Paul and Luisa is that their home on the outskirts of Albox is very close to land classified as ‘no urbanizable’.

“No urbanizable land is not for residential use, but for agricultural, forestry or livestock use, hence this pig farm has its licence”, she commented.

“Anyone who lives very close to no urbanizable land has to be aware about the nuisances from land which is not for residential use.”

Paul and Luisa have now sought advice from pressure groups lobbying against intensive pig farming.