No Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) will be required ahead of plans for a significant expansion of the Advanced Proteins factory in Cheddleton, the district council has ruled.

Leek Nub News reported recently how Advanced Proteins are aiming to obtain planning permission to construct and operate a food processing facility on unused land adjacent to the existing factory on Bones Lane.

The plans were discussed in a "screening opinion request" submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council by John Pointon And Sons, which was bought by Advanced Proteins in 2020.

The business is currently engaged in pre-application discussions with the district council before a formal planning application is submitted.

Ahead of the planning application being prepared, a "screening opinion request" was first submitted to ask whether the district council thinks an Environmental Impact Assessment will be required for the proposed expansion.

The documents argued that such an assessment would not be required because the applicant's consultant "doesn't consider the effects to be significant and that potential impacts can be satisfactorily identified and managed through the submission of an appropriate suite of supporting information to accompany a future planning application."

The district council has now come to a decision, agreeing that an EIA will not be required before a formal planning application is submitted.

The council's planning agents concluded in their decision notice: "Overall, the local planning authority is of the opinion that any potential impacts would not be of a magnitude to suggest that an environmental statement is required.

"There would be no trans frontier impact. There is no evidence that the development would involve unusually complex and potentially hazardous environmental effects. The matter of cumulative impact with the existing facility will need to be considered as part of the planning application but no significant adverse cumulative effect is anticipated in terms of the Regulations.

"Given the nature, scale and location of the proposal it is not anticipated to have any significant adverse environmental effects in terms of use of natural resources, waste, heritage, population and human health, land use, land stability and climate change, nor will it result in a risk of major accidents/disasters."

So far, it has been revealed that the proposed development will be around 29,000 square metres in size and would be built on Green Belt land.

Further details will likely become available once a full planning application is submitted.