Latter-day Saints consult on plans to demolish Ewloe meeting house and rebuild at twice the size
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is consulting the community on plans to demolish its meeting house at St David’s Park in Ewloe and replace it with a building more than twice the size.
The Church already holds planning permission for an extension to the existing building, granted by Flintshire County Council in December 2024.
It has now decided that scheme would not meet its long-term needs, and intends to submit a fresh application to knock the meeting house down and rebuild it.
The existing single-storey building, which opened in 2005, has a floor area of 690 square metres.
The replacement would be 1,425 square metres.
It would include a larger chapel seating 207 people, a new cultural hall seating 295, an expanded teaching wing, and a new free-standing spire of 14.8 metres in front of the building.
The current spire, which sits on the meeting house roof, is 22 metres tall.
The maximum ridge height of the proposed new building would be 12 metres on the chapel and cultural hall section, with the rest of the building lower.
Parking would increase from 39 spaces to 100, including 10 accessible bays, five car-share bays, electric vehicle charging points serving 10 spaces, four motorcycle bays and 10 cycle spaces.
An overflow parking area would be surfaced in a reinforced grass system.
[Architects impression of proposed new church]
The site sits between the Lakeside Business Park and the Redrow head office, set back from St David’s Park and just south of the A494.
It falls within the St David’s Park Employment Area, but Flintshire County Council has previously confirmed the existing place of worship use does not conflict with employment policy.
The plans have been prepared by architects Corstorphine & Wright on behalf of the Church.
In its design and access statement, the architects say the existing building has been “outgrown” and “no longer meets the Church’s functional and spatial requirements for this location”.
The Church says the building is used as a Stake Centre, which serves multiple congregations across north Wales and north-west England, and not just their Chester ward.
The main weekly service takes place on Sunday mornings, with smaller youth and study meetings during the week.
Several times a year, members from other wards travel to St David’s Park for joint services.
The Church says these joint services cannot be properly accommodated in the existing chapel, which seats fewer than 200.
The December 2024 consent allowed for an 840 square metre rear extension to the existing meeting house.
The planning statement prepared by JTS Partnership says the Church concluded the consented extension would meet its needs only “in the short to medium term”, and would be “a costly solution due to difficulties in upgrading the existing building to the same standard as the new build part”.
Two trees would be removed under the new plans: a Scots Pine and a Silver Birch.
A short section of hedge on the eastern boundary and some shrubs in the south-east corner would also be cleared.
None of the trees on site are protected by a Tree Preservation Order, and the site is not in a conservation area.
Replacement planting is proposed across the site, including new trees, hedgerow, and ornamental beds, alongside bat and bird boxes.
The 2024 extension consent was not the first time a full rebuild had been considered for the site.
An earlier scheme for a 2,300 square metre new-build church on the same plot was refused by Flintshire County Council in 2001 before being approved on appeal in 2002.
That scheme was never constructed.
The closest homes to the site are the flats at Maes Deri, around 80 metres away across St David’s Park.
A noise assessment submitted with the documents concludes the impact on those properties would be low.
The Church is running a pre-application consultation through April and May 2026.
A formal planning application is expected to follow once the consultation has closed.
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