£200m carbon capture project approved after consultation delay

Nation.Cymru staff

Plans for a £200 million carbon capture facility have been approved after an earlier decision was delayed because nearby communities in England had not been consulted.

Flintshire County Council’s planning committee granted permission for the development alongside the Parc Adfer waste-to-energy plant in Connah’s Quay.

Operator enfinium says the scheme would become Wales’s largest carbon removals project, capturing carbon dioxide from the treatment of unrecyclable waste for permanent storage beneath Liverpool Bay.

The application was deferred in early October after councillors questioned why communities across the border, including Burton, Shotwick and Puddington, had not been directly consulted.

At that meeting, senior planning officer Robin Wynne Williams told members: “We haven’t consulted directly with neighbouring community or parish councils over the border.”

Cllr Carol Ellis said some English communities were closer to the site than parts of Connah’s Quay.

“These people should be allowed to have their say,” she said.

Cllr Andrew Parkhurst proposed postponing the decision, arguing that Welsh communities would be unhappy if a development close to the border went ahead without them being consulted.

Parc Adfer opened in 2019 and processes up to 232,000 tonnes of unrecyclable waste annually from Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy, Gwynedd and Anglesey.

The proposed carbon capture plant is designed to capture around 241,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, with a capture rate of up to 95%, according to the plans presented in October.

The project has separately been shortlisted by the UK Government for connection to the HyNet North West carbon transport and storage network, which is under construction in the region.

Captured carbon dioxide would be compressed and transported through the network for storage in depleted gas reservoirs beneath Liverpool Bay.

At the October meeting, officers reported receiving 18 late objections, including challenges to the effectiveness of carbon capture technology and HyNet North West, a network being developed to transport carbon dioxide from industrial sites in north Wales and north-west England for permanent storage beneath Liverpool Bay.

Concerns were also raised about noise, pollution and effects on the River Dee. Some objections came from residents on the Wirral and in Cheshire.

Officers and enfinium said the concerns had been addressed in the application. The company told councillors that Natural Resources Wales was satisfied the development would not adversely affect the integrity of the Dee Estuary.

Environmental permit

At that stage, NRW was also considering an application to vary the plant’s environmental permit, providing a separate means of regulating the proposed facility.

Following confirmation of planning approval, enfinium chief executive Mike Maudsley said: “We welcome Flintshire County Council’s decision to approve our plans to develop carbon capture at Parc Adfer. This is an important milestone for the project and demonstrates that we are making progress towards delivering Wales’s largest carbon removals project.”

He added: “We remain committed to working with the UK and Welsh Governments and our partners to deliver this project and unlock the economic and environmental benefits it can bring to North Wales.”

The decision comes ahead of an anticipated UK Government review later this year of the HyNet cluster and the projects that could supply its network.