Nocton Dairies Ltd

Plans have been submitted to North Kesteven District Council for the UK's biggest dairy farm which will be based on Nocton and Dunston Heath. The plans are for herds totalling over 8000 dairy cows producing hundreds of thousands of litres of milk a day and creating around 80 jobs in the area.

Nocton Dairies Ltd will produce some of the most environmentally friendly milk in the world and the plans go beyond the requirements for animal welfare and include an in-house vet. New cleaning technologies will be used for the bedding and an anaerobic digester will deal with the colossal amounts of slurry and produce 2 MW of power to run the dairy and up to 2000 homes. Local farms will provide forage crops of lucerne and maize and the odour free digestate will be returned to the land. The cows will be housed in open sided cubicle sheds during lactation and allowed to graze when dry.

Lincolnshire was eventually chosen because of the space, the support of local farms and the lack of existing dairy farms. It is hoped that milking will begin in the autumn. We will keep you informed.