S&A defends plans

S&A Davies says on-site accommodation and tunnels are helping to reduce both the strain placed on local communities and the company’s impact on the countryside.

Jan-Willem Naerebout, S&A’s facilities and welfare director, said the company had been poor at communicating with the wider community – and that this had led to misunderstandings.

He said that, as one of the county’s biggest employers with more than 120 permanent staff in the county, it was important the firm started to communicate better.

He said: “We put about £10 million into the local economy each year, through purchases, our workers spending money in the county etc.

“It is partly thanks to us that a village the size of Marden can support two shops and a post office, while we do a lot of work with schools looking at food and conservation.” S&A holds 20% of the UK market share for soft fruit and the same share in the asparagus market.

But in order to hold onto that, Mr Naerebout said the business must grow and, although there are no plans to dramatically increase the size of the sites at Brierley or Marden, change was necessary.

He added: “One of the main issues is the availability of seasonal workers because a change in the law means we can’t hire workers from outside the EU anymore.

“Although we get around a third of our workers come back year after year, they could all go off and work elsewhere, therefore we have to provide good facilities.” Mr Naerebout also said S&A had looked at alternatives to the large polytunnels which have proved both controversial and difficult to obtain planning permission for.

He said the alternative, using mini tunnels and rotating crops, required twice as many people and twice as much land to produce half the yield compared to the larger tabletop tunnels.

S&A’s plans to build permanent accomodation for more than 2,000 workers at the Fisheries were debated by councillors as the Hereford Times went to print yesterday (Wednesday).

To see their decision, log onto herefordtimes.com