Proposed Connah’s Quay carbon capture power station – regulators say wildlife plans fall short
Two statutory regulators and Flintshire County Council have told the Planning Inspectorate examination of Uniper’s proposed Connah’s Quay Low Carbon Power Project that the developer’s plans for limiting damage to wildlife and habitat are not good enough.
Natural Resources Wales, Natural England and Flintshire County Council each filed formal responses this month to the ongoing Planning Inspectorate examination.
Their submissions cover damage to internationally protected habitat in the Dee Estuary and the loss of feeding land for a red-listed bird species.
They also raise concerns about the combined air pollution from this and other nearby industrial projects, and about how the developer’s environmental promises would be made legally binding if permission is granted.
The application by Uniper UK Limited seeks consent to build a gas-fired power station fitted with carbon capture on the existing Connah’s Quay Power Station site at Kelsterton Road, with a likely maximum output of 1,380 megawatts.
Captured carbon dioxide would be piped through the HyNet network to old empty gas fields under Liverpool Bay for permanent storage.
The decision on the project rests with the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, not the Welsh Government, because the project is large enough in scale that it is decided at UK Government level rather than by Welsh ministers.
The most substantive objection on the public record concerns damage to the internationally protected Dee Estuary.
Natural Resources Wales has told the examination that nitrogen pollution from the proposed station would affect 245 hectares of saltmarsh within the Dee Estuary alone, and 445 hectares when added to the effects of other developments in the area.
Uniper has proposed creating 0.13 hectares of new saltmarsh nearby, by allowing an area of land to flood, to make up for the damage.
Natural Resources Wales has formally challenged the level of nitrogen pollution Uniper says the saltmarsh can safely absorb without being harmed, citing peer-reviewed European research and stating that background nitrogen pollution at the Dee Estuary has been above safe levels every year since records began in 2003.
The body said the proposed measures “remain more appropriately characterised as compensatory at this stage of the examination.”
The legal classification matters because if the measures are treated as compensation rather than as proper damage limitation, the developer must prove there is no alternative way of meeting the project’s aims and that the project is so important to the public interest that the environmental damage is justified.
Uniper has filed a backup case to keep the project alive if the Secretary of State agrees with Natural Resources Wales, while continuing to argue the backup is not needed.
Natural England, the equivalent body for the English side of the Dee Estuary, has formally adopted the same position on the legal classification of the measures.
Flintshire County Council has also said the developer’s environmental promises should be made legally binding in any permission, rather than left to plans agreed after approval.
A second contested area concerns curlew, a red-listed wading bird that uses fields next to the existing power station.
The Curlew Mitigation Strategy submitted by Uniper records that 92 curlew were observed on the affected fields on a single day in December 2023, equivalent to 2.4% of the curlew that spend winter at the Dee Estuary.
Uniper proposes making up for the loss of 26 hectares of fields the curlew rely on by managing 26 hectares of replacement habitat at Gronant Fields, near Prestatyn, around 21 kilometres from the development site.
Natural Resources Wales accepts the Gronant Fields site in principle but has raised six concerns about how the replacement habitat would be delivered, including how long the new site should be monitored and whether it would be ready in time for the curlew before construction destroys their current home.
Flintshire County Council has separately raised concerns about Uniper’s wider biodiversity assessment, stating that the developer’s approach “does not follow standard best practice for projects in Wales.”
In a separate strand, Natural Resources Wales has told the examination that Uniper’s air quality assessment should be updated to include emissions from the Arrow Bio Waste Recycling Facility at Deeside Industrial Park, after the Arrow facility’s own assessment found impacts on the Dee Estuary that “could not be screened out as insignificant.”
Against this picture, one contested area at the examination has been resolved.
A formal agreement signed on 16 and 20 April 2026 by Uniper and Airbus Operations Limited records that Airbus has no objection to the proposed development.
Airbus had originally raised concerns that the plant’s chimney heights would breach the protected airspace around Hawarden Airport, used for the transport of aircraft wings manufactured at Broughton.
Uniper has lowered the stack heights and submitted a formal change application to the examination, which was accepted on 7 April 2026.
Flintshire County Council has also raised a separate concern about a community benefit fund proposed by Uniper.
The fund, set out in the developer’s Community and Local Benefits Statement, would cover STEM education, health and wellbeing, public rights of way and nature access.
Flintshire County Council has asked Uniper to provide a “visible plan or schedule of actions” before the next stage of the examination, and to confirm whether the rights of way and nature access elements would be made legally binding if permission is granted.
The examination of the Connah’s Quay Low Carbon Power Project continues, with the Planning Inspector’s recommendation to follow before the UK Government makes the final decision.
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