In September 2023, Metsä announced that it had chosen Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, as the location of its planned new tissue paper mill in the UK. The Goole site was chosen over 60 other potential locations because of its ideal location (the Humber region provides a crucial gateway to the whole of the United Kingdom), the strength of the region’s manufacturing workforce, and because the region’s ambitions to bring cutting-edge green technology and jobs to the UK matches our own ambitions in clean and local manufacturing.
Once fully operational, the planned mill will be capable of producing 240,000 tonnes of tissue paper per year. It will be the largest tissue paper mill in the United Kingdom and reduce the amount of tissue paper products that are currently imported to the UK and Ireland, increasing the UK’s self sufficiency in this sector by 30%.
We are over a quarter of the way through our anticipated two-year planning process, which is the usual time taken for planning a project on this scale. Over months of hard work and throughout the process, we have examined every detail of our planned mill and consulted with public bodies. We want to ensure that our proposals will have the greatest benefit to the local community and the smallest possible negative impact on the local environment.
We are now nearing the end of the preliminary design phase. Some of the most enjoyable and interesting aspects of the design process have been working out innovative solutions to mitigate the potential flood risk in the area, and devising solutions to lay out the site efficiently whilst minimising the potential impact on the local area. We have also completed over a year’s worth of ecology surveys and it has been interesting to map out and understand the bio-diversity around the site and develop plans to enhance it as the facility evolves.
Perhaps most importantly, along the way we have been able to share our emerging designs as they have evolved with the local community, first at a very early stage at the Meet Metsä event in November 2023, and more recently during our first public consultation in March 2024. At both these events, we have given the public the opportunity to scrutinise our plans and provide feedback on how our designs may be improved. This feedback from people with knowledge of the local area has proved invaluable and has had a direct impact on significant elements of our design.
Furthermore, it has shown us the level of enthusiasm for the investment plans by the majority of the local population, including residents, businesses and other regional stakeholders, not least because of the 400 direct jobs that it would create in the area and the thousands of others that it would generate across the supply chain and during the construction phase.
So, what are the next stages for our planned new tissue paper mill?
Over the summer months, we shall continue to take into consideration previous feedback received and use it to fine tune our plans. Our final design for planning will be unveiled during our second public consultation in September 2024, before we plan to submit our planning application in Q4 2024.
Then, our focus will be on the engineering phase of our planning, preparing the final detailed designs of the facility and undertaking the procurement of the machinery needed for production – the paper machines and the converting lines. Our demands will be high and we shall be choosing from the very best technologies available to ensure that the new tissue paper mill would produce high quality products efficiently and meet Metsä’s commitment to be free of carbon emissions by 2030. That phase will be followed by a two-year construction phase, which we aim to begin in 2026, of course dependent of the investment decision.
As we proceed, we’ll continue to provide updates on our progress in our Future Mill blogs, as well as via our website, on social media and in our press releases, and we shall maintain an open and transparent dialogue with all our stakeholders throughout our whole journey together.