About the town » Elton, Cheshire West and Chester, England, Great Britain

Elton is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is situated approximately 13 km (8.1 mi) to the northeast of Chester, between Helsby and Ellesmere Port, near to the River Mersey. Its proximity to the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal have contributed to its industrial character. The village is on the north-western edge of the Cheshire plain, approximately 2.5 km (1.6 mi) from Stanlow Refinery, a Shell facility and the seventh largest oil refinery in Europe. The refinery produces one-sixth of the United Kingdom's petrol. At the time of the 2001 Census, the village of Elton had a population of 3,528, increasing to 3,586 at the 2011 Census.Elton was briefly in the media spotlight in 1997 when one of its residents, Louise Woodward, went on trial for murder in the USA. By 2007, 65 hectares of the former Ince Power Station site near the Mersey had been redeveloped as part of a large bottle production factory owned by Quinn Glass, containing two glass melting furnaces and 13 bottle production lines. It was estimated that £250 million was invested into this project and the factory outputs 1.2 billion bottles per year. It has recently been proposed that a 95 kilowatt power station and various recycling plants be sited on a water meadow near Elton. The land is owned by Peel Holdings and the proposal is in its embryonic stage.