Planning approval for 160-year-old meat company’s new Morecambe facility

Family-owned meat supplier Althams Butchers has secured the go-ahead for a new processing facility in Lancashire.

The scheme will be built at Hillside Farm in Morecambe and eventually supply some of the UK’s top hotels, restaurants and retailers with prime beef, pork, lamb and other foods.

Althams is making the move due to outgrowing its premises at White Lund, Morecambe.

Hillside Farm was previously home to a free-range pork farm, but the site closed in 2012 and the farmhouse and outbuildings have been unused since.

The redundant buildings will make way for a 55,000 sq ft facility featuring the latest preparation, packing and refrigeration capabilities, Althams said.

The new property will be clad in timber and designed to give the appearance of a series of linked agricultural barns. It will include on-site parking and cycle storage facilities.

Lancaster-based Harrison Pitt Architects designed the facility.

Richard Parker, a director of Harrison Pitt, said: “We’re delighted that Althams Butchers can now move forward with its expansion plans, an aspiration that wasn’t possible with the constraints of its existing premises.

“This new facility will allow the business to operate more efficiently and will also provide an economic boost to the area by allowing new jobs to be created.”

He added: “This is another project that demonstrates our expertise in building design for the food manufacturing sector.”

Althams Butchers was founded in 1856 and today employs more than 100 staff.

Work on the development will start later this year.