Planners hold key to future of abattoir (From Western Telegraph)

Planners hold key to future of abattoir

PLANNERS hold the key to the future of an abattoir servicing the needs of farmers and meat buyers in Pembrokeshire.

The Pembrokeshire Meat Company wants to build a slaughterhouse at Withybush Park, Haverfordwest, but needs permission from Pembrokeshire County Council.

Its leisure and development committee will decide next month if the facility can be built on the Parks East Estate.

It has been a decade since Pembrokeshire had its own abattoir and its absence has been marked during the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Until then, the public were largely ignorant of the long journeys farmers were forced to haul beef and sheep for slaughter.

The previous facility, which stood near to the proposed site, closed ten years ago because it failed to meet tough new European Union standards.

The Pembrokeshire Meat Company, formed last autumn by farmers and businessmen, believes the East Estate site is ideal because it is on a full-serviced industrial estate.

It hopes to secure grants from the Welsh Development Agency and other funding organisations but declined to comment on its plans until it knows if it has the go-ahead to start developing the site.

Farmers hoping to benefit from the facility are also being asked to become shareholder members.

The plan has been welcomed by local farmers and butchers and is viewed as a positive step forward by the Pembrokeshire chairman of the National Farmers Union, Brian Ratcliffe.

This abattoir is long overdue, he says. It will mean farmers can supply local retailers and wholesalers with beef and lamb produced and slaughtered in Pembrokeshire.

Progress is also being made on plans for a similar facility at Whitland.