A Hunter council has deferred a decision on a controversial pig farm proposal, sidestepping a recommendation from its planning staff that the development be refused over risks to drinking water.
Dungog Shire Council voted at the September 16 ordinary meeting to defer Development Application 241/2025, a small-scale rotational outdoor piggery proposed by applicant Rod Blackman and landowner Belinda Johnson at 3565 Allyn River Road, Upper Allyn.
The applicant is proposing to keep six breeding sows, two boars and about 60 offspring, framed as part of a broader regenerative farming operation on the 60ha property.
Planning staff and an independently commissioned consultant had concluded, across multiple rounds of assessment, that the applicant had not adequately demonstrated the site could sustainably absorb nutrient loads or reliably control erosion and runoff.
Council's business paper, citing a mean average rainfall of 975mm a year for the site, found the terrain too steep and too wet for the proposal to safely manage nutrient runoff into the drinking water catchment.
The proposal has drawn opposition from nearby residents, including author and social commentator Jane Caro, who said her property and a neighbouring landholding both backed directly onto the headwaters of the Allyn River, close to the Chichester State Forest.
"We're about five properties out from the Chichester State Forest. It's the real headwaters," she said.
"There's platypus in the river. My daughter's seen platypus, my neighbours have seen platypus."
Caro said the site failed the pork industry's own published guidance on suitable land for outdoor piggeries, which recommends flat to gently undulating ground and average annual rainfall no higher than about 750mm.
"This does not qualify," she said.
"It's anything from 10 to 45 degrees in steepness, which obviously means there's a lot of possibility of flowing waste and runoff.
"We're on the edge of a rainforest, and our average rainfall last year was 1300 millimetres. That's a bloody sight higher than 750."
Caro's main concern was the run-off.
"We're told free-range pigs don't smell, and I'm sure most of the time that's true," she said.
"But our concern is what happens in a big rain, which happens all the time, followed by a big dry, which we're facing now.
"The watercourse dries up but leaves deep pools, and they'll be stagnant and smelly."
She acknowledged a personal stake in the outcome, but said the concerns extended well beyond her boundary.
"Neighbours to the south of the site draw their drinking water directly from the river," she said.
The operators of nearby Allyn River Cottages have also lodged an objection.
"It's just running a risk with what is one of the last really pristine wild rivers."
By Caro's count, the application had been knocked back four times on the merits, twice by Hunter Water, then by council's independently commissioned specialist, Scolexia Animal and Avian Health Consultancy, and finally by the council's planning staff.
"The independent expert they commissioned actually wrote the guidelines for the Australian pork industry," Caro said.
"You're not going to find a more qualified expert than that."
The deferral gives the applicant more time to engage an independent technical specialist, at their own expense, to respond to concerns raised in council's assessment.
Subject to those concerns being "satisfactorily addressed," a further report is to be brought back to council.
An amendment to the motion, which was seconded, also secured a site visit for councillors before that follow-up report returns.
Caro said the outcome undermined the point of commissioning expert advice in the first place, calling it "a bit dodgy".
During debate, councillors weighed the scale of information in the application against the seriousness of the water catchment risk.
Councillor Liam Ley argued the matter was too complex to resolve without further consideration, noting risk in agricultural operations could never be entirely eliminated but could potentially be managed.
Mayor Digby Rayward pointed to a local history of small-scale pig farming in the shire as reason not to be alarmed by the proposal, a comment Caro likened to a well-known political stunt involving a lump of coal in federal Parliament.
"He basically said there's no reason to be afraid of pigs, because people have been doing this for ages," Caro said.
"It was exactly the same argument. I thought that was an interesting parallel."
The mayor also said the application leaned heavily on regenerative farming principles, a practice he said he used himself, but that these were hard to translate into enforceable conditions of consent, and further specialist input was needed.
The motion to defer was carried.
