An egg-producing company is seeking to divest itself of its caged hens in the face of a change in demand.

Fridays of Cranbrook said growing preference for free-range eggs combined with increasingly tough legislation was making caged egg production no longer viable.

As a consequence, the company has submitted a planning application to close its caged or colony egg production facilities at Knoxbridge Farm in Frittenden and to convert the 13 large roosting sheds and packing houses to industrial and distribution uses.

It would mean the loss of production of around 263 million eggs a year.

The company said that in 2020, there were still 12.2m caged hens in egg production across the country, but by 2023 that had shrunk to 7.5m, while the number of free-range birds had grown to 25.9m.

Today 70% of all egg sales are from free-range birds.

All the major UK supermarkets have committed to ending the sale of eggs from caged hens by 2025.

Knoxbridge Farm has been used for egg production since the early 1980s, expanding over the years, and there are 13 large laying barns and other buildings on the site.

The structures are effectively giant metal sheds and Fridays said it would be easy to convert them to light industrial or warehouse use.

All that would be required would be the addition of some windows. The buildings and access would stay the same.

A solar panel array at the site would also stay to power the new uses.

An existing anaerobic digester plant would also stay to continue to process manure from Fridays’ other chicken farms.

With the buildings let to a variety of tenants, there was likely to be an increase in employment over the 24 employed there now, Fridays said.

But that would also increase traffic, with Fridays’ consultants predicting an extra 1,470 trips during a 12-hour day-time period.

The site lies mainly in the parish of Frittenden, but the access road onto the A229 Cranbrook Road falls within Maidstone borough.

The company is offering to make a financial contribution towards improvements to the Linton Crossroads by way of mitigation.

It also offered to accept a condition limiting the use of the buildings for warehouse and distribution - assumed to generate the most traffic - to just 5,000 sq m of the overall total of 31,687 sq m available.

Fridays would seek to replace the lost egg production with a new free-range site - and the company has already applied to Maidstone council to create such a site at Reed Court Farm in Marden. That application has yet to be decided.

Fridays said the Knoxbridge site was not of sufficient quality to simply be converted to free-range production.

The number of parking spaces would be increased from 100 to 300, including 12 disabled spaces.

Traffic seems to be the biggest objection to the plans raised by neighbours.

Ralph Wootton from Knoxbridge, said: “Like other neighbours, I am very concerned about the traffic situation on the A229.

“It is already difficult and dangerous to exit onto the A229 next to The Knoxbridge Cafe.”

Dr John Murton of Knoxbridge, said Fridays had been good neighbours and he did not object to the change of use in principal.

However, he said, the “inevitable increase in traffic” along the Knoxbridge stretch of the A229 would need to be addressed.

He said it was already difficult for residents to safely pull onto the main road and “a 20% increase in traffic at rush hours will worsen this considerably, with gaps between fast-moving traffic even shorter than currently”.

Frittenden Parish Council has objected to the scheme.

It too was concerned at the effect on highways and worried that there was no limit on the hours of use for the proposal which could result in noise and light pollution affecting neighbours.

Fridays employs 250 people and focuses on producing fresh eggs, sandwich fillings and salads for a variety of markets, with their fresh egg customers including several of the major UK supermarket chains.

It has several other farms in the area.

Find out about planning applications that affect you at the Public Notice Portal.

The Knoxbridge planning application can be found on the Tunbridge Wells council website under reference 24/01814.

The Marden application can be found on the Maidstone council website under application number 20/505751.