POULTRY farmers face having to pay thousands of pounds a year to meet new anti-pollution laws.

Units with 40,000 to 400,000 birds will have to pay almost £3,000 as a one-off registration fee, followed by an annual licence charge of almost £2,000.

Those with more than 400,000 birds will pay the one-off registration fee plus an annual charge of almost £2,500. Those with fewer than 40,000 bird places will not be affected.

The integrated pollution prevention controls have been introduced across the EU and will apply to more than 200 different industries such as paper, iron and steel, food processing, ceramics - anything with the potential for pollution problems.

They are designed to prevent and control air, land and water pollution and reduce emissions and include many existing best practices as well as introducing more efficient ways of working in terms of energy and raw materials.

New chicken, turkey and egg units already have to comply with IPPC and existing ones will have to meet the requirements by 2007.

If, however, "substantial" changes are made to existing installations, the producer may need to apply immediately for an IPPC permit. "Substantial change means any change in operations which may have a significant negative effect on human beings or the environment," Mr Jason Gittins, from ADAS, told a producers' meeting at York.

He did not think it would mean changes such as a new ventilation system or the replacement of cages. "But if there is an increase in the number of birds, that could bring IPPC in earlier rather than later," he said.

ADAS believed a group of poultry houses on the same site would be classed as one installation. However, there might be a difficulty where they were half a mile or more apart.

If two units a mile apart each had 60,000 birds, it would be in the producer's interest to have them classed as one so that only one fee had to be paid. If, however, each unit had only 30,000 birds it would be better to have them classed separately, so that IPPC would not cover them.

The Environment Agency has been charged with administering the rules and it is to the agency that farmers must apply for a permit.

A detailed application pack is available, and as long as it can be shown that best available techniques were to be used and no pollution or emissions caused, it should be granted.

Mr Gittins gave three key rules for poultry production and IPPC:

l keep the litter/manure dry;

l avoid excesses of nitrogen and phosphate in the feed;

l minimise dust emissions.

Fields used for spreading are not classed as part of the installation but conditions could be attached to the permit governing the handling and management of manure. A plan to control odour may be required if the site is close to houses.

IPPC application forms are available from the Environment Agency and six copies must be returned so that other consultees can view them.

Originally the government was proposing to charge an initial £10,000 but had reduced it to the current sums.

The meeting was told costs and actual implementation had been left to individual member states. It was understood the Dutch were not imposing the controls because they argued existing controls already covered this. France was also reported to have said that it, too, already had adequate provision