Flintshire
Flintshire (Welsh: Sir y Fflint) is a county in the north-east of Wales. It has a maritime border with Merseyside along the Dee Estuary to the north, and land borders with Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. Connah's Quay is the largest town, while Flintshire County Council is based in Mold.
For the historic county, see Flintshire (historic). For the racehorse, see Flintshire (horse).
The county covers 169 square miles (440 km2), with a population of 155,000 in 2021. After Connah's Quay-Shotton (23,000) the largest settlements are Flint (13,736), Buckley (16,127) and Mold (10,123). The east of the county is industrialised and contains the Deeside conurbation, which extends into Cheshire and has a population of 53,568. The adjacent coast is also home to industry, but further west has been developed for tourism, particularly at Talacre. Inland, the west of the county is sparsely populated and characterised by gentle hills, including part of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB.
The county is named after the historic county of the same name, which was established by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and has notably different borders. The county is considered part of the Welsh Marches and formed part of the historic Earldom of Chester and Flint.
Railways[edit]
Located on the North Wales Coast Line (Holyhead to Chester) with services run by Avanti West Coast and Transport for Wales specifically calling at Flintshire stations such as Flint and Shotton with an interchange at Shotton with the Borderlands Line, which links it and other Flintshire stations with the Liverpool area and Wrexham.
Industry[edit]
Parts of Flintshire have major manufacturing industries. Amongst these are an advanced Toyota plant that manufactures engines, Eren Paper,[6] and Airbus UK, making the wings for the A320, A330 and A350 aircraft at Broughton.[7]
There are daily flights of the Airbus BelugaXL transport aircraft of Airbus wings from Broughton.
Flintshire is also known for its internet companies, the largest and most well known being Moneysupermarket.com based in Ewloe.
Flintshire included much of the North Wales Coalfield, with the last colliery at Point of Ayr closing in 1996.
Flintshire is home to Shotwick Solar Park, currently the largest photovoltaic solar array in the UK. It was built in 2016 and covers 250 acres of the south western edge of the Wirral Peninsula near the village of Shotwick. It has a maximum generating capacity of 72.2 MW and is connected directly to the largest paper-mill in the UK, UPM Shotton Paper.
Flintshire was home to a thriving steel industry with many of the local communities and homes being built around this sector. Steelmaking came to an end in 1980 with the loss of 6500 on one day. The Shotton Steelworks site, now owned by Tata Steel, continues to produce coated steel products, mainly for the construction industry. [8]
Fairtrade[edit]
On 19 November 2004, Flintshire was granted Fairtrade County status.[9]
Media[edit]
Flintshire's local newspapers include two daily titles, North Wales Daily Post and The Leader.
There are two radio stations broadcast in the area – Communicorp station Heart North and Mid Wales and Global Radio station Capital North West and Wales broadcast from the studios based in Wrexham. Whilst BBC Cymru Wales runs a studio and newsroom for their radio, television and online services located at Glyndŵr University but does not base their broadcasting there.
An online news website covering the Flintshire area, Deeside.com, operates from Deeside.
Politics and government[edit]
Flintshire has been traditionally a Labour Party stronghold, but in the 2019 general election, the Welsh Conservatives won the Delyn constituency.[11]
The Alyn and Deeside constituency is a historically and still is a Welsh Labour Party constituency, which is represented by Mark Tami.[12]
Flintshire has one formal twinning arrangement with: