History
The business was founded in 1922 and was the longest established producer of 100 per cent recycled newsprint and produced on average 400,000 tonnes of recycled newsprint every year from 500,000 tonnes of recycled waste fibre. On 23rd February 2015, the plant’s 300-strong workforce was dealt the shock blow that the firm, which had been running for nearly a century, would be applying to go into administration. The site has now been decommissioned, and the latest report to creditors suggests the mill itself will be demolished some time in mid-2017. The stock of paper was bought for £8.3m and a sale of the plant and machinery was completed in September for £7.9m by waste management firm W&S Recycling. Commercial director at W&S, Tony Knowles, said: “Over the last six months a considerable section of equipment has been sold for re-use including two 100-tonne pulping machines to an Egyptian client plus the complete PM14 newsprint manufacturing line, sold to Chinese clients.
A total of 230 employees were made redundant. A further 60 were kept on temporarily to assist with the decommissioning of the site. Now just 10 people remain, to help dismantle the plant and machinery.
So this was my 2nd trip to Aylesford newsprint visited in December 2015 with Maniac. So this time I went with Begood. I Wanted to cover the other parts of the Newsprint we hadn’t so far. A lot has changed since visiting 3 months ago they have started stripping the PM14 and removing some of the conveyor belts which moved the wastepaper. Our trip was cut short after we set off an alarm in the admin building but apart from that we had covered everything pretty much. This is the best explore I have done to date and is a must see before much more gets removed.
Aerial picture showing how massive the site is
Main admin building and offices, (these are alarmed by motion sensors as we found out)
storage tanks
chimneys
The building as the very back houses the Pm13 and the at the back left houses the PM14
Fork trucks
Kent-urbex & Begood
News letter for staff of the PM14
Dismantling the PM14
PM14 machine
A before picture
This was the final stage of the paper where it was cut to size onto reels then onto the wrapping stage and stored.
Before picture of it in action
PM13 which we missed on out previous visit
Pm13 and control panel
Loads bays
The business was founded in 1922 and was the longest established producer of 100 per cent recycled newsprint and produced on average 400,000 tonnes of recycled newsprint every year from 500,000 tonnes of recycled waste fibre. On 23rd February 2015, the plant’s 300-strong workforce was dealt the shock blow that the firm, which had been running for nearly a century, would be applying to go into administration. The site has now been decommissioned, and the latest report to creditors suggests the mill itself will be demolished some time in mid-2017. The stock of paper was bought for £8.3m and a sale of the plant and machinery was completed in September for £7.9m by waste management firm W&S Recycling. Commercial director at W&S, Tony Knowles, said: “Over the last six months a considerable section of equipment has been sold for re-use including two 100-tonne pulping machines to an Egyptian client plus the complete PM14 newsprint manufacturing line, sold to Chinese clients.
A total of 230 employees were made redundant. A further 60 were kept on temporarily to assist with the decommissioning of the site. Now just 10 people remain, to help dismantle the plant and machinery.
So this was my 2nd trip to Aylesford newsprint visited in December 2015 with Maniac. So this time I went with Begood. I Wanted to cover the other parts of the Newsprint we hadn’t so far. A lot has changed since visiting 3 months ago they have started stripping the PM14 and removing some of the conveyor belts which moved the wastepaper. Our trip was cut short after we set off an alarm in the admin building but apart from that we had covered everything pretty much. This is the best explore I have done to date and is a must see before much more gets removed.
Aerial picture showing how massive the site is
Main admin building and offices, (these are alarmed by motion sensors as we found out)
storage tanks
chimneys
The building as the very back houses the Pm13 and the at the back left houses the PM14
Fork trucks
Kent-urbex & Begood
News letter for staff of the PM14
Dismantling the PM14
PM14 machine
A before picture
This was the final stage of the paper where it was cut to size onto reels then onto the wrapping stage and stored.
Before picture of it in action
PM13 which we missed on out previous visit
Pm13 and control panel
Loads bays
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