£80m warehouse upgrade recommended

An £80m upgrade to a cold storage firm's warehouse should be allowed to go ahead, council planners have recommended.

Constellation Cold Logistics (CCL) wants to build a new cold store warehouse, open 24 hours a day, at its site on the Park Lane Industrial Estate in Wolverhampton.

City of Wolverhampton Council's planning committee meets on 2 June with a recommendation from its planning officers that the 108,900-sq-ft (10,000-sq-m) development should be approved.

The council received 10 objections, some saying Park Lane was already congested and the "significant" increase in lorries would result in more noise, emissions and light pollution.

Concerns were also raised over the size of the proposed extension and the impact it would have on parking in nearby residential areas.

A previous planning application, submitted in October 2025 but withdrawn by December, had promised an estimated £90m investment and more new jobs as part of new and extended facilities that would have tripled the site's pallet storage to 60,000.

The plans were withdrawn over concerns from the council over the size of the warehouse and its potential impact on neighbours.

The proposal would create 37 new jobs and double the storage capacity at the site to 40,000 pallets.

However, the planning application said the firm would be forced to move its facilities away from the city as soon as possible and withdraw its £80m plan if the expansion plans were not approved.

CCL bought the site in 2023 and said it would need "significant investment", as it had last been upgraded 30 years ago and some of the buildings dated back to the 1950s.

A statement included with the application said: "The entire Park Lane facility is outdated and not fit for purpose.

"It was purchased by CCL on the value of land only, with the buildings assigned no value due to the need to imminently redevelop to retain functions and customers."

The warehouse would be up and running by summer 2027 if the application was given the go-ahead, CCL said.

CCL's statement added that it had identified other areas of the Black Country where the investment could take place, but this would likely result in the need to relocate the entire campus.

It said: "As such, refusal would not only mean the loss of £40 million worth of investment into Wolverhampton, but would likely also mean the relocation of the existing facility elsewhere within the Black Country, potentially within a different authority – and the loss [of] existing and proposed jobs.

"It is vitally important this application is approved, and this investment realised in the Park Lane facility."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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