£50m greenhouse developers voice frustration at ‘unprecedented absence of communication’ from Wrexham Council’s Planning Department

Plans to build a £50m pair of cutting-edge sustainable greenhouses to Wrexham could be under threat according to the developers.

In letters to both Wrexham Council’s Planning Officer David Williams and the Chair of the Planning Committee Cllr Michael Morris the developers of the planned scheme say the scheme will ‘become unviable’ if progress is not made on the planning process.

The proposed two greenhouses will span 15.2 hectares of agricultural land located directly between Dwr Cymru’s Five Fords Waste-Water Treatment Works and SecAnim Abattoir.

Waste heat and carbon emissions from the Dwr Cymru facility will be captured and used to grow the low carbon fresh produce. The developers say if the site is used solely for growing tomatoes, as is planned for the companies two world-first projects currently in construction in East Anglia, the Five Fords site would be capable of producing over 40% of all tomatoes consumed in Wales.

Planning application papers were lodged in July, along with a warning then from developers that it was a “time-limited opportunity since the window for support funding from UK Government is closing”, pointing out that the application would “test the efficiency of the council’s planning team and its statutory target of determining new planning applications within an 8 week timeframe”.

That deadline appears to be coming to a head, with letters made public from the developers voicing their concerns over timeframes, with a request for an ‘extraordinary’ planning committee meeting to decide on the plan.

On the 1st September the developers wrote to the Officer and Chairman to say that they saw the scheme was not on the agenda for the committee at the next meeting on the 7th, and requested that it be considered under the chairman’s discretion. The document states: “I wondered whether we could please be added to item 5, ‘Any other items which the Chair decides are urgent’.

“I ask of course because if the greenhouses are not able to be listed on the 7th then they become unviable which would seem a terrible shame considering the work by all parties involved to date, not to mention the loss to Wrexham.”

Today a further letter has been sent highlighting the letter from Tuesday saying they had ‘not heard back’, and with communication generally criticised, “…we have not spoken to the planning department (despite almost daily calls in effort to) since July, and our last email correspondence from the case officer was on the 20th of August.

“This absence of communication is unprecedented in our experience of 22 infrastructure projects in the UK by our business, and in my colleague’s experience as a local authority planning officer.”

The developer adds: “An example of how this has hampered our application is that a response from the Highways Department from the 20th of August was only uploaded to the public portal yesterday, giving us very little time to respond, albeit we will have today with the information required. This is in complete contrast with other elements of the North Wales public and private sphere and Welsh Government who have been very enthusiastic and collaborative.”

The developer again says the local proposal could fall if not considered soon,: “If your intent is as I write, then I am saddened and shocked that the opportunity for the most advanced greenhouse in Europe will be lost. The greenhouse will have the highest specification available in terms of Dutch build and design, and furthermore will utilise LED lighting, heat pumps, and a CO2 recovery system which will make it one of the best greenhouses in the world.”

The developer makes a further request asking the committee to consider an ‘extraordinary’ meeting on the 18th, a date allocated for site visits however due to the pandemic such visits no longer take place so is vacant.

The developer cites their account of a conversation with the Five Fords landowner: “We have however heard third hand, from our landowner who had a conversation with Michael, that you are likely to not place the application on the agenda nor would you consider our application in any way as ‘special’ and therefore not deserving of an extraordinary meeting of the committee.”