Potential movement for delayed bottle making factory which promises 1,000 jobs

Tweaks have been made to plans for a £390 million bottle making factory which has promised over 1,000 jobs in a region that has been described as the most ‘economically deprived constituency in Wales’.

In September last year, it was revealed that Turkish firm CiNER Glass Ltd wanted to make a number of changes to the original planning permission that they were given in June 2022 by Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Planning Committee to build a glass bottle making factory at Rassau Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Ebbw Vale.

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

Changes

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 changes followed a meeting between the firm’s planning agents, Arup, and Blaenau Gwent planners on December 5.

The purpose of this meeting was to find out if changes proposed to the batch building, which would make it smaller, fall within the scope of the current application.

Planning agents Arup said: “The proposed changes comprise rotating the batch building by 90 degrees, with the longer elevations now facing east and west.

“This change was essential in reducing the overall size of the service yard, reducing the overall footprint of the development, and subsequently allowing the relocation of the warehouse to the end of the main production buildings, forming the preferred linear layout.”

Changes include removing 12 “bulk material storage silos” from the proposal as the building was originally to have six silos on each side of it.

Arup said: “There will be a reduction in on-site bulk storage resulting in a reduction to the overall building footprint.”

Another change will see “two material feeder units” for sand delivery added to the plan.

Arup said: “The previous design’s hopper solution resulted in very deep basement structures.

“The shallower basements result in a more efficient design solution.”

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

Arup explained: “This was required due to the rotation of the building.”

Y Bannau

New documents lodged with the proposal say that the noise which is expected to come from the batch building had already been assessed as part of an “addendum” to the Environmental Assessment.

According to Arup it is “unlikely” that the changes would create “new significant effects” – a concern for planners owing to the site’s close proximity to Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.

Due to this, they believe the changes “sit within the scope” of the application and that the supporting documentation is enough to assess it.

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.

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.

Anyone with comments on the proposal should email [email protected] or write to the Planning Team, General Offices, Steelworks Road, Ebbw Vale NP23 6DN by January 29.