Plan for bottle-making plant that could create 600 jobs

PLANS to build a glass bottle manufacturing facility in Blaenau Gwent which promises to create 600 jobs have been revealed.

Ciner Glass wants to open the facility on the Rassau Industrial Estate, near Ebbw Vale, with operations starting in 2023 and full production the following year.

The proposed development includes warehouse facilities for storing bottles and two furnaces and chimney stacks up to 75-metres in height. Production lines for the manufacturing, inspection and packaging of glass bottles including storage facilities are also planned, along with two buildings used to process rejected and recycled glass.

A scoping report - submitted before a planning application to consider environmental impacts - has been submitted to Blaenau Gwent council giving some details of the plans.

“Typically glass production involves two main methods - the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers,” the report says.

“Glass production proposed by Ciner Glass Ltd is the production of container glass which consists of a three-part operation.

“The handling of raw material, the manufacturing of the glass containers and the product-inspection and packaging process.”

Around 1,200 pallets of glass bottles will need to be transported from the site following production each day, while materials for the production of glass will also need to be delivered to the facility.

This is estimated to create an additional 100 HGV journeys to and from the facility every day, with access to the site provided from the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road.

The development is estimated to create 600 jobs associated with the operation and running of the facility, which will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the report says.