Seiont’s plans for 200,000 sq ft waste recycler hit brick wall
Gwynedd Council has voted to defer an application submitted by Cadnant Planning detailing the reset of a former brickworks into a 62,400 sq ft recycling plant for soils, construction, and demolition waste, after it was recommended for refusal.
The local authority’s planning committee met on 28 April.
Officers had declared that the application “does not demonstrate an identified need” for a waste management facility on that plot, which is not located within an established development boundary.
It was added that Seiont’s plans for the plant’s construction would lead to a “permanent negative visual impact” on the area and added that the application “lacks clarity” over pollution runoff concerns.
The more than 16-acre site in question is the former Seiont brickworks – a brick clay quarry and a brick production factory which operated until closure in 2008.
Proposals put forward by Seiont would construct around 57,600 sq ft of storage space and install a concrete batching plant area spanning 29,000 sq ft.
In addition, a plant maintenance and storage area extending to 53,800 sq ft is planned.
The site is being used as a temporary compound in connection with the Caernarfon to Bontnewydd bypass construction project and currently contains offices, mobile concrete making facilities, heavy plant workshops, materials storage, and car parking for that purpose.
Access to the site is off Seiont Mill Road on the south side of Caernarfon, but the officer’s report suggests that access proposals, too, are problematic, noting them as “substandard”.
Cadnant Planning has yet to respond to a request for comment.
To view the application, use the planning reference number C24/0297/19/LL on Gwynedd Council.
