HUNDREDS of people have lodged objections to plans to establish a clay pigeon shooting club on farm land in the Green Belt at Rixton, Warrington.
In addition, objections have been received from Birchwood Town Council, Rixton-with-Glazebrook Parish Council, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, Warrington Nature Conservation Forum, the borough council’s natural environment officer, Risley Moss Action Group and Woolston Eyes Conservation Group.
A number of borough councillors have also lodged objections.
Objectors are particularly angry because the plans have been submitted retrospectively – the shooting club is already operating.
The plan involves a change of use of land at Prospect Farm, Prospect Lane, Rixton, for use as a clay pigeon shooting club, with clubhouse and associated parking spaces.
Ten timber acoustic shooting enclosures, 10 air rifle enclosures and five archery enclosures are envisaged.
A total of 358 individual objections have been received, plus two petitions signed by a total of 269 people.
Planning officers will be recommending the plan be thrown out when it comes before the borough council’s development management committee this week
But an associated plan to upgrade a track leading to the site is recommended for approval and another application for a two metre boundary fence does not require planning consent, they say.
Clay pigeon shooting on the site is permitted on 28 days in a year without planning consent – and has been going on for some time. But permission is required for the club to operate throughout the year.
Planners say the noise of clay pigeon shooting would deter protected bird species, already in decline, from breeding, feeding or visiting the Risley Moss site of special scientific interest (SSSI), damaging its value for nature conservation.
Two wooden buildings and mounding have already been introduced without planning consent and that in the event of permission being denied it would be appropriate to consider enforcement action, they say.
The applicants – the Prospect Target Club – say the development would provide essential and secure training for amateur and professional shooters.
There are 300 members of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) in Cheshire but only one accredited BASC facility in the county.
Ten new jobs would be created and five existing jobs retains and the facility would attract £400,000 a year in consumer expenditure at local hotels, food, retail and leisure outlets.
The application is supported by the National Disabled Shooters Club and the bulk of the site will be given over to landscaping, with 8,000 trees being planted.
Objectors say there are a large number of houses close enough to the site to be affected by the sound of gunshots.
