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Turkey’s Eren Holdings is seeking to build the UK’s largest paper mill, as well as a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, on the site of the Shotton paper mill in Flintshire.

In a consultation ahead of making planning applications to Flintshire County Council, Eren said it wanted a plant with a production capacity of 750,000 tonnes a year of containerboard and 210,000 tonnes a year of tissue.

Eren said the site (pictured) would be able to recycle all the waste paper generated in Wales.

It would expand and repurpose the current site, but keep its renewable energy generation, materials recovery and recycling facilities.

The containerboard facility would use 100% recycled paper and card to manufacture brown paper, Eren said.

Its machine for converting paper to make cardboard would be among the largest in Europe, producing 10.1m-wide reels, while the tissue facility would use a combination of recycled and virgin pulp.

Jobs at the plant would expand from the present 190 to 850 and, once fully operational, Eren said the project would bring £600m into the local economy.

The CHP plant would be additional to existing facilities, and its size would mean it renamed as a ‘development of national significance’ requiring approval from the  Welsh Government rather than the county council.

A separate consultation on this said it would provide the plant with up to 60MW of power.

Eren launched its plans for Shotton in September 2021, when it said in an initial scoping report for Flintshire County Council: “Analysis of the UK paper industry shows that the UK is currently a net importer of both containerboard products and tissue products, while at the same time being a net exporter of recycled (waste) paper. 

“The proposed development is intended to close both these gaps by increasing production at the site, thereby allowing the use of more recycled paper, with the proposed cardboard paper production facility using 100% recycled paper.”

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