Glenrath Farms submitted an application for the £8 million expansion with Scottish Borders Council this week. The Lamancha-based company already gained permission to build a single giant hen-hut earlier this year after a lengthy argument with councilors and local campaigners opposed to development in the rural Blythbank valley.

But the firm’s boss John Campbell now has the backing of an independent environmental impact study on his side. If the new bid is successful the poultry village will house around 300,000 birds and create 60 new jobs.

Glenrath is already the largest egg producer in Scotland, turning out 1.3 million eggs every day, but Mr Campbell told the Peeblesshire News that expansion is needed to meet demand. He said: “There is an increasing demand for free range eggs and we are ideally placed to respond to those market signals. Some supermarkets have to import eggs, surely it makes sense to produce them in the UK.

Source: Peeblesshire News