New plans for £390 million bottle-making factory approved

Elgan Hearn, local democracy reporter

New plans for a £390 million bottle-making factory have been approved by planners.

In September last year, it was revealed that Turkish firm CiNER Glass Ltd wanted to make number of changes to the original planning permission to build the plant at the Rassau Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Ebbw Vale.

Planning permission was originally granted in June 2022 by the Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Planning Committee.

Subsequently the company lodged a section 73 planning application with the council and an initial public consultation on the changes took place in October and November last year.

A further month-long consultation started over the Christmas holiday period after further tweaks to the plans were made, these centred on the “batch building” proposed at the site.

The tweaks included rotating the batch building by 90 degrees, with the longer elevations now facing east and west.

This change was to reduce the overall size of the service yard, reducing the overall footprint of the development.

Relocation

It would also allow the relocation of the warehouse to the end of the main production buildings, forming the preferred linear layout.

A conveyor bridge structure will also be moved from the end of the building to the side.

According to planning agents Arup it is “unlikely” that the changes would create “new significant effects.”

Last year, Arup were commissioned by CiNER to change some of the “approved parameters” to the scale, height, layout, appearance, access, and landscape of the proposal.

Great Crested Newts

The company also want to remove a condition which relates to Great Crested Newts as they believe they have provided “sufficient details” on this topic.

A spokesman for Blaenau Gwent said: “The application was approved on February 1.

“The rationale behind that decision is that the impacts are now the same or less for each issue than the scheme previously consented by Planning Committee.

“The new permission is subject to the same legal agreement and conditions save that the approved plans have changed to reflect the new design and the requirement for Great Crested Newts has been omitted as it’s been proven they are not present since the original consent was issued.”