UP TO 200 jobs could be created if Velindre NHS Trust’s plans for a new storage and distribution warehouse in Newport are approved.

The former Essentra packing plant on Imperial Park industrial estate could be used to store fast moving goods for hospitals and healthcare facilities across the whole of Wales.

These include examination gloves, catheters, syringes, cleaning materials, non-perishable food and cutlery.

Essentra closed its folding cartons facility in 2017, leading to 150 jobs being lost despite the firm receiving a £400,000 grant from the Welsh Government.

Velindre NHS Trust must now ask Newport City Council for permission to change the building’s use from manufacturing to storage and distribution.

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“The proposal would make an efficient use of brownfield land that is in a highly sustainable location given that Imperial Park is an existing development,” says a planning report submitted on behalf of the trust.

“The site is currently unoccupied as such provides no benefits in relation to the economy and employment to people living within the surrounding area.

“It will provide approximately 150 to 200 jobs.”

If approved the warehouse will operate Monday to Sunday between 5am an 11pm, with heavy and light goods vehicles expected to make 40 trips a day.

The proposed vehicle movements are more than the building’s current use allows, but the trust feels this will not have a detrimental impact given the industrial nature of the site.

There have also been issues finding manufacturing tenants to relocate to the site, according to Newport City Council.

A council report says: “Whilst the proposed use would see a loss in a manufacturing use it is recognised that there would be considerable space remaining within Imperial Park for manufacturing.

“The ongoing provision of up to 200 jobs would be a positive impact on the local economy.”

Members of the council’s planning committee will consider the application on Wednesday, June 5.