Protest on Deeside Industrial Estate brings traffic to a standstill

The main transport route through Deeside Industrial Estate was forced to close this morning as protesters blocked the entrance to the Parc Adfer construction site.

Police were called to what they described as an ‘unplanned protest’ officers attended to make sure “it was peaceful and to manage traffic, ” a spokesman said.

Vehicles were brought to a standstill on the A548 from around Zone 2 of the estate during the peak rush hour leaving many motorists stuck in queues as they headed to work.

Construction Progress – Parc Adfer

The road which stretches from the A494 at Sealand to Flintshire Bridge through the industrial estate was back open and clear by 9am.

Chaos… completely shut by police for traffic backed up to the patrol station zone4 pic.twitter.com/MLpvmkGxGw

— Paul Morris (@moggsy100) October 19, 2017

The group protesting this morning handed a letter out to passers by in which they claimed local, and UK-based workers were being excluded from mechanical and electrical construction work.

The protesters also claim CNIM, the French firm handed the construction contract for the new Park Adfer incinerator on the industrial estate have a “track record of exploiting non-UK labour through bogus self-employment.”

Picture sent to Deeside.com on social media of the letter protesters were handing out.

A spokesperson for CNIM said;

“We have had a group of people blocking the road at the entrance to the Parc Adfer site this morning from around 6.30am. 

We understand this is not an official gathering.

With reference to the claims being made by the protestors, we do not recognise these comments about CNIM and work practice in the UK, which fully complies with the law and good practice for now more than 20 years and especially for the projects executed and completed by CNIM these last years.

We have not received any evidence of the claims and continue to be in dialogue with the Trade Unions.

The project is still in its early stages and we are still recruiting for contracts across the site.”

The £800m Parc Adfer energy recovery facility is being built on part of the former Shotton steelworks site.

It has been named Parc Adfer to reflect how it will help North Wales recover energy from its non-recyclable waste (Adfer meaning to ‘recover’ or ‘restore’ in Welsh).

The construction phase is expected to result in hundreds of additional jobs and create around 35 new, full-time operational roles at the facility when plant operations commence in 2019.