Just three members of the public attended a hearing on Uniper’s Connah’s Quay power station plans
Rows of empty chairs greeted a public hearing into plans for a new low-carbon power station at Connah’s Quay on Wednesday morning.
The hearing room at the Village Hotel in Ewloe was set up for a large public audience.
The session was part of a formal Planning Inspectorate examination of Uniper’s application to build a 1.38 gigawatt power station at Kelsterton Road, and focused on how the development would look and what impact it would have on the landscape and the communities living closest to the site.
Three members of the public attended.
A livestream was available but not prominently advertised.
If approved and built, the Connah’s Quay Low Carbon Power project would generate up to 1.38 gigawatts of low carbon electricity, with captured carbon dioxide transported via the HyNet pipeline to depleted offshore gas fields in Liverpool Bay for permanent storage.
The HyNet Carbon Dioxide pipeline is designed to carry captured CO2 from industrial sites across north Wales and the north west of England to Liverpool Bay.
Its route through Flintshire runs from the Point of Ayr Compressor Station near Talacre towards Stanlow, with key installations planned near Flint, Northop Hall, Mold Junction, Rock Bank and Babell.
One of those three members of the public, Jennifer Hume of the Oakenholt Farm Hall Complex, told the hearing she was “totally shocked at the lack of community spirit in this room.”
Ms Hume said Uniper’s claimed door-to-door consultations had not reached her area.
“Not one person in our area has spoken to Uniper on those door-knocks,” she said.
“How you can actually say that you’ve analysed the situation and actually spoken to the communities correctly, I just do not know.”
James Strachan KC, appearing for the applicant, told Nicholas Ely, the Lead Member of the Examining Authority, that Uniper had followed “an extensive, indeed not just statutory but non-statutory, consultation engagement exercise,” and said the documentation supporting that claim was on the examination record.
He acknowledged not everyone would be satisfied with the process.
[An image of the proposed low-carbon power station at Connah’s Quay]
Mr Ely told the room that he was pushing the applicant on how it had spoken to local people and taken their views into account.
He said he had expected more community representation at the hearing.
Mr Ely said the decision to stop advertising hearings in local newspapers had “had an impact, particularly on the older community” who may rely on print rather than digital communication, adding that it was “a policy approach outside of my control.”
Wales Coast Path
The hearing also heard from Ben Oakman, of Arup, representing Flintshire County Council, who identified what he said was an omission in the applicant’s landscape and visual impact assessment.
Mr Oakman told the hearing that the Wales Coast Path and National Cycle Network Route 5 had not been assessed as visual receptors in the application’s environmental statement.
He gave ‘Viewpoint 8’ taken from Flint Castle, as an example, saying it was adjacent to the Wales Coast Path but did not assess that route.
“That is an omission, in my view, that actually underestimates the significance of effects on visual receptors,” he said.
Mr Oakman also said the number of viewpoints submitted, 15 in total, was “much more proportionate to the likes of a solar farm or a small business park” than to a development of national significance.
Joerg Schulz, Associate Director of Landscape at AECOM, appearing for the applicant, said the 15 viewpoints had been agreed with Flintshire County Council through the standard scoping process.
He said significant visual effects within approximately 2.5 kilometres of the main development area were acknowledged in the assessment, including effects on properties at Oakenholt Farm.
Mr Schulz said the colour approach for the buildings, moving from darker tones at lower levels to lighter shades at the upper sections and stacks, had been designed to reduce the visual impact on the community closest to the site, where most views would be seen against the sky.
Mr Ely acknowledged the technical process had been followed, but challenged the applicant on whether the design represented good design rather than standard technical design.
He referred to a power station in Copenhagen where, he said, the development had been integrated with the local community to the point where property prices nearby had risen.
James Strachan KC told the hearing there were legal limits on how far community benefits could be used to justify a development under the Planning Act, but said Uniper contributed to the community in other ways and that a community liaison officer and liaison group were proposed as part of the scheme.
A local resident, David Hughes, told the hearing he was concerned about the impact of pile driving on properties in the area, including his own, during what he described as a nine-year construction period.
He said his family had experienced vibration from the construction of the existing power station and wanted pre-construction surveys of nearby properties to be carried out.
The applicant said noise and vibration assessments had been completed using reasonable worst-case scenarios and that provisions for further assessment, including pre-condition surveys, were included in the framework construction environment management plan if the project were to be consented.
Mr Ely said that if the project were to go ahead, the applicant “would be wise” to carry out condition surveys of nearby properties given the representations from residents about previous construction.
The hearing was also told that Ramblers Cymru had submitted feedback raising concerns about missing viewpoint assessments from public paths and wider views into the national landscape.
Mr Ely said if he did not receive a response to that feedback, he would raise it again at a later stage of the examination.
The examination continues.
[Main photograph was taken before this mornings session had started]
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