Prism Ag becomes the first UK Agricultural & Rural Planning Consultancy to collaborate with Galebreaker Agri
Case Study
‘Prism Ag’ received a client instruction in June 2020, following an advisory site visit in April 2018 where Tom Warren, Director at Prism Ag met with the clients at their established mixed farming enterprise, having previously viewed their existing agricultural unit and layout of agricultural buildings, discussing various proposals for an on-farm diversification, the clients were firmly set on establishing a Bed & Breakfast weaner pig operation for up to 4,050 pig places per year. The clients plan was to apply for full planning to locate the pig unit near to existing buildings, but following Prism Ag's advice against locating the pig building in close proximity to the village due to odour issues, a new siting location with suitable 2-way access was chosen. The new location was some 700 metres distant from any protected buildings which also meant that an Agricultural Prior Approval application could be used for the new agricultural livestock building to house weaner pigs in the East Riding of Yorkshire area. The client had specified they intended to use Galebreaker Agri roller screen products to allow ventilation, weather protection and screening of the proposed livestock building.
Prism Ag’s surveyor visited the farm with a Leica Total Station and produced a topographical survey of the land area. For the proposed agricultural livestock building to be sited on a hillside location, elements of cut and fill would be required, with extracted material used to create bunding for tree and hedge planting to better screen the proposed building. Prism Ag coordinated the submission of the Prior Approval application; including providing a Topographic Survey and an Agricultural Statement for Planning, whilst Morris Architectural Design prepared the proposed planning drawings from a design brief provided by Prism Ag on behalf of the client.
Tom Warren, an Agricultural and Rural Planning Consultant at ‘Prism Ag’, made contact with Andrew Gardner, Technical Director at Galebreaker, based in Ledbury, Herefordshire in July 2020 to specifically request copies of their individual CAD Block drawing files for each of their product designs. Galebreaker Agri had not considered making such files available in the trademark green colour scheme that Prism Ag requested, but agreed to collaborate with our request as the first Rural Planning Consultant who had requested such files with Galebreaker Agri commenting that “It just makes sense that others can use the same data in producing drawings for planning, customer representations and structural detail drawings", Andrew Gardner, Technical Director goes on to say that “Accuracy of design data at all levels just streamlines the process for the customer and everyone involved with a project".
It became apparent from that first conversation with Galebreaker Agri, specialists in ventilation and weather protection of livestock housing, that this was a first time request, at no point in the past 30 years had a UK Agricultural Consultant or Rural Planning Consultant requested the inclusion of their design files at a Planning Stage of design and Galebreaker were keen to establish this first ever collaboration with Prism Agriculture Ltd, which showed how our vision would establish the use of their drawing files as part of our client proposal to submit as a Rural Planning submission.
Andrew Gardner, Technical Director at Galebreaker Agri said “For some time Galebreaker have wondered how we can best support architects and planners in creating detailed ‘new build’ drawings that need to represent our products. When Tom made contact with us asking for CAD data of the Galebreaker Rollerscreen for him to use in their planning application we were really pleased and excited to help him. Galebreaker are fortunate that all our products are designed in-house by our engineering team using 2D and 3D CAD”
'Prism Ag becomes the first Agricultural & Rural Planning Consultancy to collaborate at the pre-planning stage with Galebreaker Agri, who have been established at the forefront of the industry for the last 30 years'
For over 30 years, Galebreaker Agri has offered a variety of screen, door and curtain systems as well as silage protection and mechanical ventilation products, having only previously supplied plans at the construction phase to principal contractors erecting already approved buildings, this first with Prism Agriculture Ltd enabled the data to be provided in a colour format for the planning drawing stage.
“Our experience with dealing with Prism Agriculture Ltd has been a great collaboration experience and has reinforced Galebreaker’s desire to make such CAD data available for all of our products to support other architects and consultants in the same way.” Andrew Gardner, Technical Director at Galebreaker Agri.