Station Road the focus as council seeks Queensferry revamp

Flintshire’s cabinet will also be asked to sign off draft plans for Connah’s Quay, with the two town centres the latest to go under the placemaking microscope across the county.

Flintshire’s seven towns are all in line for a placemaking-led rethink funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, from which around £250,000 was secured to put proposals together in late 2022.

That funding stream ties in with the Welsh Government’s Town Centres First programme, launched in 2020, which put £90m into play for projects revivifying town centres.

Placemaking plans for Holywell, Shotton and Buckley were then approved in February and March 2025, and now Flintshire Council’s environment and economy overview and scrutiny committee has had the chance to review and support the draft plan for Queensferry, together with an emerging plan for Connah’s Quay.

Queesnferry has undergone two rounds of consultation, throwing up the outcome that the chierf issues needing to be addressed are that a majority of people, around 60%, find the town centre unwelcoming and don’t feel positive about what it offers.

The draft plan seeking to address this has been put together by a project team including design firm Roberts Limbrick and regeneration consultant Chris Jones.

Queensferry’s main strength is its ease of access, something that has also proven to be a weakness, making it somewhere easy to pass through. Tackling vacant premises is seen as a key challenge, the 18% central vacancy rate being above the national average of 14%.

The plan calls for attention to be given to improving the “gateway” into the town centre, clustered around Station Road. In terms of specific buildings, the former BT/GPO building is seen as a key priority.

Strengthening pedestrian connections and introducing better planting is a target, while reusing assets such as the community hall and a disused toilet block are picked out for what is seen as an area with good underlying metrics, being compact and of human scale with some heritage assets and with opportunities for F&B to “spill out” into public realm.

The same consultants have looked at Connah’s Quay, the largest town in Flintshire and one that runs right up against Deeside Industrial Park and the Tata steelworks.

Identified as desirable here are improvements to the high street, with street trees and the removal of guard rails described as the most cost-effective way forward. Making the precinct a positive contributor to the town centre is also picked out as a priority. A set of options are also put forward for improving active travel.

Major factors hovering in the background of any development plans are large-scale projects, such as the potential replacement of Deeside Leisure Centre, and possible service improvements on the Wrexham to Bidston railway line.