Flintshire approves £600m paper mill, rejects 130 homes
Eren Holdings can move forward with its plans to create 660 jobs in Deeside, while Lane End Developments Construction hit a dead end with its plans for 130 homes in Ewloe.
Those were the results of Flintshire County Council’s planning committee meeting on Wednesday.
Redevelopment of the former UPM Shotton Paper Mill site
Committee members were fans of Turkish company Eren Holdings mission to turn the Shotton Mill site into one of the largest and most technologically advanced paper production facilities in Europe.
Now armed with planning approval, Eren can progress efforts to craft a more than 3.1m sq ft complex on more than 200 acres within Deeside Industrial Park. This is phase one of a £600m project centred on the 148-acre site.
SLR Consulting submitted the plans and designs for the mill, which will create tissue paper and cardboard. Recycled paper will be used when possible.
There will be 451 car parking spaces on the site, of which 10% will be EV charging points.
Eren hopes to make the site self-sufficient, with a later phase of the project including the creation of a combined heat and power facility to provide low-carbon electricity for the mill.
Eren acquired the site in May last year.
The application’s reference number with Flintshire Council is FUL/000011/22.
The layout for the ill-fated affordable housing project. Credit: via planning documents
Building of 130 homes in Ewloe
Flintshire Council made a near-unanimous decision to go along with the planning officer’s recommendation to reject Lane End Development Construction’s plans for 130 affordable homes off Liverpool Road.
The reasons for rejection centred around insufficient information for parts of the project, which amounted to an unjustified loss of high-quality agricultural land that would have detrimental impacts on the area – according to the officer.
If the council had decided differently, Lane End would have been able to build the apartments, bungalows, and houses on 14 acres of mostly greenfield land. The scheme also included more than 2.5 acres of public open space and a playground.
Grimster Planning was the planning consultant for the project. For those who want to learn more about the scheme, the project’s planning application reference number is 062820.
