The 130ft-tall warehouse branded an 'absolute eyesore' by angry neighbours
Residents in Flintshire have been left reeling as the full scale of a new paper mill has become apparent during construction. Part of the vast complex rises almost 40 metres (130ft) and people living in nearby Garden City, Deeside, have complained it is blotting out the horizon.
Italian company Industrie Cartarie Tronchetti Group (ICT) is building a 700,000 sq ft paper mill at the Northern Gateway site. The firm said the redevelopment of part of the former RAF Sealand site will create more than 400 jobs and inject millions of pounds into the area’s economy.
The mill, on a 58-acre site near Amazon’s Delivery Station, will produce paper products such as toilet rolls, kitchen towels and napkins for UK and Irish markets. Lower-height sheds built so far have gone mostly unremarked but the construction of a giant High Bay Warehouse has caused local consternation.
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The warehouse will contain an automated racking system operating on 11 levels for product storage and distribution. During the planning process, Flintshire Council officers accepted it would be “highly visible” and said measures will be taken to blend the 39.65-metre structure into the skyline.
But as the real-world scale of the development emerges, it’s left local people appalled. Cal Jones, a delivery driver from Garden City, labelled it an “absolute eyesore”. He said: “When the smaller flat-roofed buildings were going up, it didn’t look too bad.
“But I’ve been watching this new building go up from my bedroom window and it’s not a nice view. It’s terrible. And is not just people in Garden City affected – you can see it from the wider area. I don’t think anyone realised how big it would be, including our local representatives.”
When Cal shared an image of the new building on social media, among those to react was Cllr Christine Jones, deputy leader of Flintshire Council who represents the Queensferry and Sealand ward. She has written to the local authority demanding answers. Sign up now for the latest news on the North Wales Live Whatsapp community
One person labelled the half-built warehouse “awful and absolutely huge”. Another wrote online: “Omg it’s a good job my mum and dad are not with us anymore. They lived third house from the bottom. They would be going mad. What an eyesore!”
According to its owner, which operates similar paper mills on the Continent, Deeside’s new facility will help address a “substantial shortfall” in the domestic production of tissue paper products. In 2022, when planning consent was approved, ICT said this amounted to around 340,000 tonnes per year.
The Welsh Government provided £5m towards the facility. During a consultation process, around 100 responses were received and more than half expressed their support for the scheme. At the time, concerns centred on potential pollution and traffic issues.
As well as manufacturing sheds, the complex includes office space, HGV parking, water treatment plant and a new drainage outfall to the River Dee. In a planning report in 2022, Flintshire Council’s chief planning officer Andrew Farrow said: “The scale of the development is not insignificant and once fully built out will be highly visible within the site and from wider vistas.
"A comprehensive Landscape Visual Impact Assessment has been supplied with the application which concludes that, whilst there may be a minor impact on wider visual vistas, these are minimal when considering the context of the site.”
The visual assessment was undertaken by landscape consultants Barry Chinn Associates (BCA), which noted the rack-clad High Bay Warehouse was a “necessary and isolated tall element” of the development. In such buildings, the internal racking structure supports the weight of the building. Inside, it will be mostly unoccupied, operating as a “dark space” without windows.
While Flintshire Council lacks planning guidance on tall buildings, other policies in Wales set out parameters but these are usually for cities. In any case, windowless warehouses are in a category of their own and architectural tricks are often used to lessen their visual impact.
A successful example of this is Airbus’ Broughton (West) facility, said the consultants. This has “vertical breaks” to reduce its horizontal scale and is cladded so as to break up external walls into “legible sections”. BCA added: “They offer a degree of reflectivity that responds to the conditions of the local environment."
To reduce the visual impact of the paper mill’s High Bay Warehouse, the building has been positioned near the back of the site facing existing facilities on the industrial park. When completed, it will be painted in horizontal bands with lighter colours at the top so that its height “diminishes visually”. Trees will be planted at the base to soften its impact.
Mock-up images compiled by consultants show the warehouse as being visible from Castle Hill in Wepre Park 4km away. Cal Jones said it was a depressing time for the area as the Northern Gateway site is developed.
“More houses are being built between Garden City and the new paper mill, so it will be worse for them,” he said. “It’s a terrible time with so much building going on. Yet local residents are getting nothing back.
“Where are the new doctors’ surgeries, dental practices and schools we need to accommodate all this development? I’ve been trying to get a dental appointment for five years and it’s only going to get worse. And now we have to live next to this eyesore.” Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
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