AN application to consider if an environmental report would be required before further expansion of an arms factory has been “closed”. 

BAE Systems put forward initial plans for a new manufacturing facility on vacant land at its site at Glascoed between Pontypool and Usk in July. 

It submitted an environmental impact assessment “scoping request” to Monmouthshire County Council related to plans “to develop a new energetics manufacturing facility on vacant land within the eastern part of the existing BAE Glascoed site”.  

An environmental impact assessment is intended to consider all the consequences, good and bad, of a particular planning application on the environment. The council, or the Welsh Government, could require an environmental impact assessment or it could be decided one isn’t required for the application. 

A decision published by the council, without further information, shows the application is now “closed”.