A farmer who is is being paid almost £1.5million of public money to stop rearing pigs does not even own the animals on his land.

James Daniels was getting the cash windfall as part of a plan to loosen planning constraints and allow up to 5000 new homes to be built in Norfolk.

In return, he must agree to no longer keep pigs on his fields at Markshall Farm either side of the A47 bypass south of Norwich to stop harmful nutrients flowing into two nearby rivers.

But it can now be revealed that the estimated 2000 pigs reared each year on his farm belong to a company called Norfolk Free Range Ltd which rents the land from him.

The company which rears pigs at around 40 sites across East Anglia is ultimately owned by self-made millionaire farmers Steve and Sally Ann Hart.

It potentially means there is nothing to stop Mr and Mrs Hart rearing the same number of pigs on another piece of land in Norfolk.

An outraged local villager who asked not to be named said: "People were concerned about James Daniels making a fortune by not having pigs on his land any more.

"But the fact that those pigs are owned by someone else and could simply be moved elsewhere, means they will still be producing the same amount of nutrients.

"It turns the whole thing into a box ticking exercise because the net environmental gain could be absolutely nil. It is just green washing."

Mr Hart, a former national Pig Farmer of the year, admitted that he rented the land at Markshall Farm, and only found out about his landlord's huge payout when he read news reports about it last Friday.

Speaking to MailOnline while he was tending to some of his pigs with his daughter, he insisted that he would not be a beneficiary of Mr Daniels' windfall.

Asked what would happen to his pigs, he said: 'I have not seen him. I don't yet know what will happen. It was news to me and I don't know anything about it. I have not seen or heard from James since that article.'

Mr Hart, 63, who lives with his wife in a palatial Grade Two listed Elizabethan manor house in west Norfolk, declined to comment further, saying: 'Honestly, I'm up to my eyes in it at the minute I'm afraid.'

Earlier his wife, speaking from their 16th century home, admitted it was possible that they could find an alternative site to raise the same number of pigs.

Mrs Hart, 53, said: "We are tenants. It's not our land. It's all a bit odd isn't it. We're not gaining anything out of it.

"We always rent land because we move pigs all the time. Farmers love us because we provide the muck and its good for the land, but we are constantly moving farms and sites.

"There is only a certain time that pigs can be on the land because they root it up. It is all part of crop rotation. We must have 40 sites and thousands of pigs."

Local authorities cannot approve new developments in some areas unless they offset the environmental impact caused by new homes, including increased sewage and detergents from washing machines.

Councils have been looking for schemes that meet this requirement - and Norfolk's solution was to pay Mr Daniels to not have pigs on his land and therefore stop polluting waterways.

The authorities will pay him through a company called Norfolk Environmental Credits Ltd, a joint venture between Norfolk councils and Anglian Water.

But it is hoped that money can be clawed back from developers, who will pay NEC Ltd for environmental 'credits' giving them the right to build their housing schemes.