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THAMESTEEL, SHEERNESS - JUNE 2015
This place has had more traffic than Kerry Katona and it is not hard to see why. Industrial heavy weight nourishment at every turn and so much to digest. With a strong sunlight finding gaps in the broken roof and highlighting machinery beautifully, this really did feel like mooching heaven
. Thamesteel, in Sheerness Kent was a steel foundry until January 2012. The owners of the plant went into administration and workers came to work to be told that they no longer had a job. Nothing has happened since that day, everything lays exactly as it was, just with a layer of dust covering every last bit of history which was left behind. Another victim of Britain's lack of support for industry. Former owners the Al-Tuwairqi Group (ATG) took it back over in June, but since then there has been no news on what will happen to it except that it could cost up to £30million to decontaminate the land.
Members of Community Union, which represents the workers, even wrote an open letter to ATG chairman Dr Hilal Al-Tuwairqi asking what his intentions are for the site, but he failed to respond. Rumours about other takeovers have been quashed and numerous meetings at various government departments have taken place, but still no one knows what is happening.
A legal dispute about ownership of the assets is ongoing between Peel Land and Property, which owns the site, and ATG - but it is unclear when this will be resolved. There are still around 250 outstanding unfair dismissal claims filed by Community on behalf of the staff who lost their jobs.
*As of June 2015, there are new hopes to reopen part of the plant this year, but together with previous false promises and the general state of the plant, this remains to be seen.*
With the tripod continuing its retirement on the railway embankment, i tried a mixture of long and fast exposures, but it is not easy to do a place like this justice. I hope you enjoy anyway.
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12. I would not want to drop my camera in there, or myself for that matter
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18. 'Ladle hugging' is clearly a challenge
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19. The start button has been pressed for the 100 metre dash, which quickly turned into a Sunday stroll
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21. This former ICI wooden bodied internal wagon is standing at the buffer stop also shown above. Photographed exactly three years previously (failed visit due to large number of yellow vests), all wagons have now been removed from the site.
22. The sun shining on the righteous.
Whilst in the area... i had a stroll up to Queenborough.
All that remains is the railway crossing on Rushenden Road with track lifted either side up to the road. The office block to Invicta Merchant Bar Ltd (Queenborough Rolling Mill) remains in use whilst the last scrap is dealt with from the mill. All locomotives and wagons have also gone from a nearby yard.
The crossing lead to a jetty where scrap metal was transported to the works, mainly to be reformed into concrete reinforcing bars. By all accounts the jetty was dismantled last year and the line lifted. A sad end to Queenborough's industrial history.
Thanks for looking folks !
