Park & Paterson ltd.

Park & Paterson ltd. Recycled metal for over 130 years until the company merged with Bernhard Metals in 2003 to become one of the U.Ks biggest Ingot manufacturers, sadly 12 months later the company went into administration.

The foundry was built late 19th century and later added storage buildings in the 1960s and an office block with labrotory in 1972, the site occupies 1.9 hectares and also includes two detatched houses at the entrance to the site as well as a weigh bridge.

The site has been derelict since 2004 the only sections of the site that remaining intact are the offices and labs in Mclaren house.

In March 2007 Morris homes put forward planning permission to transform the site and build 99 new residential houses on the site.

Due to the fact that the land is so badly contaminated, it has been estimated that costs would run into the millions to decontaminate it, hence the lack of interest from potential buyers.

Despite this, the site is actualy well preserved after 3 years of being empty, we expected a lot worse, there has been vandalism but its not that much and this is only really confined to the foundry section as its the most accessible.

Since the foundry closed it has been pretty much forgotten and left to decay but in June 2007 one of the local kids fell 35 feet from one of the roofs and ended up with a broken shoulder.

When the local media found out about this it was local headline news, resulting in people going to the site to see where the kid fell from.

When myself and Cyclone originaly explored the site, access was relativley easy and there wasnt too much damage inside or out, and Mclaren House which is also part of the site and houses the offices and labs was sealed tight.

In July we returned with Romanian 1 and Lawrence, sometime between our first and second visit though, vandals have been in and caused more damage and also made access to Mclaren House.

August seen us return for a third time with Dodgerat and again vandals had been in, the old access points to the foundry had been sealed but vandals had forced entry at different points including smashing windows to gain access into Mclaren House.

The site is still derelict but its only a matter of time now before it falls victim to redevelopment.