Llanwern steelworks is located in Llanwern, east of the City of Newport, South Wales.
Llanwern steelworks is located in Llanwern, east of the City of Newport, South Wales.
Built for Richard Thomas & Baldwins Ltd, the works was originally referred to locally as "The RTB", before being called Spencer Works and later Llanwern under British Steel Corporation. The steelworks site is alongside the South Wales Main Line east of Newport, offering excellent rail transport for the works.
It was the first oxygen-blown integrated steelworks in Britain when it opened in 1962. [1] The hot strip mill pioneered the first successful use of a computer for complete mill control. [2] [3]
The steelworks were built on grassland and wetland that local schoolchildren used to roam through on their way to the sea, and which provided a varied habitat for reptiles, amphibians, insects, mammals and birds.[ citation needed ]
Having won an open internal competition in the 1990s with the Ravenscraig steelworks to become British Steel's leading hot strip mill, in the efforts to increase group and site efficiency in 2001 steelmaking ceased at the site with the loss of 1300 jobs. With hot steel slab now imported by rail from the sister Port Talbot steelworks, the mothballed "heavy end" of the Llanwern works was resultantly demolished in 2004. [4]
In January 2009, Corus announced that it was mothballing the hot strip mill, with the loss of over 500 jobs. [5] In August 2009 Corus announced that the hot strip mill would resume operations. [6] Subsequent problems caused by the eurozone crisis forced the company to once again mothball the hot strip mill commencing 24 November 2011 with plans to re-open during late 2012. This stance was released to the press on 2 December 2011. [7]
Tata's operations at Llanwern include a hot strip mill, two pickle lines, a cold strip mill and a hot dip galvanising line. The works rolls 1.5 million tonnes of steel coil per annum for automotive, construction and general engineering applications. [8]
A £115m renewal project called Glan Llyn, led by St. Modwen Properties PLC, is currently transforming the former steel-producing part of the Llanwern steelworks site. Started in 2004, the masterplan envisages 1.5m sq ft of employment-generating accommodation hosting 6,000 jobs, 4,000 new dwellings, community facilities and open space including 3 new lakes. Full completion is anticipated by 2026–28.
In 2017 it was announced that the Spanish railway rolling stock construction company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) would open a factory at Celtic Business Park (near the steelworks) to build trains primarily for the UK market, including Transport for Wales.
British Steel was a major British steel producer. It originated from the nationalised British Steel Corporation (BSC), formed in 1967, which was privatised as a public limited company, British Steel plc, in 1988. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group in 1999.
Newport is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, 12 mi (19 km) northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third-largest authority with city status in Wales, and seventh most populous overall. Newport became a unitary authority in 1996 and forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area. Newport was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Great Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839. The population grew considerably during the 2021 census, rising to 159,587, the largest growth of a unitary authority in Wales.
Stocksbridge is a town and civil parish, in the City of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies just to the east of the Peak District. The town is located in the steep-sided valley of the Little Don River, below the Underbank Reservoir. It blends into the areas of Deepcar, Bolsterstone and the eastern end of Ewden valley around Ewden village, which are also within the civil parish. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 13,455.
Tata Steel Europe Ltd. was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company was created in 2007, when Tata Group took over the British-Dutch Corus Group.
The Ebbw Valley Railway is a branch line of the South Wales Main Line in South Wales. Transport for Wales Rail provides an hourly passenger service each way between Ebbw Vale Town and Cardiff Central, and an hourly service each way between Crosskeys and Newport.
Port Talbot Steelworks is an integrated steel production plant in Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, Wales, capable of producing nearly 5 million tonnes of steel slab per annum. This makes it the larger of the two major steel plants in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. Over 4,000 people work at the plant.
Llanwern is a community in the eastern part of the City of Newport, South East Wales. Llanwern is bounded by the M4 and Langstone to the north, Ringland, Lliswerry and the River Usk to the west, the River Severn to the south and the city boundary to the east. The population of the Llanwern community in 2011 was 333, which contains Llanwern village and the western half of the site of Llanwern steelworks. The area is governed by the Newport City Council. The community population dropped to 289 in 2011. The community also includes the area of Glan Llyn.
Richard Thomas and Baldwins Ltd (RTB) was a major iron, steel and tinplate producer, primarily based in Wales and formed in 1948 by the merger of Richard Thomas & Co Ltd with Baldwins Ltd. It was absorbed into British Steel Corporation in 1967. The business now forms part of Corus, a subsidiary of Tata Steel.
Llanwern railway station is a former station serving Llanwern on the east side of the city of Newport.
The Ravenscraig steelworks, operated by Colvilles and from 1967 by British Steel Corporation, consisted of an integrated iron and steel works and a hot strip steel mill. They were located in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
The Teesside Steelworks was a large steelworks that formed a continuous stretch along the south bank of the River Tees from the towns of Middlesbrough to Redcar in North Yorkshire, England. At its height there were 91 blast furnaces within a 10-mile radius of the area. By the end of the 1970s there was only one left on Teesside. Opened in 1979 and located near the mouth of the River Tees, the Redcar blast furnace was the second largest in Europe.
Ebbw Vale Steelworks was an integrated steel mill located in Ebbw Vale, South Wales. Developed from 1790, by the late 1930s it had become the largest steel mill in Europe. It was nationalised after World War II. As the steel industry changed to bulk handling, iron and steel making was ceased in the 1970s, and the site was redeveloped as a specialised tinplate works. It was closed by Corus in 2002, but is being redeveloped in a joint partnership between Blaenau Gwent Council and the Welsh Government.
Fire and Steel Festival was a one-day festival held in Redcar, North Yorkshire, set against the background of the industrial furnace of the largest steelworks in Europe and Redcar’s coast line.
Glan Llyn is the name of a mixed-use community development, to the south-east of Newport, South Wales, at the western end of the former Llanwern steelworks, on the A4810 road at the edge of the Caldicot Levels.
Trostre Steelworks is a tinplate manufacturing facility located in Pemberton, Carmarthenshire, just outside Llanelli, West Wales. Planned by the Steel Company of Wales in 1947, today it is part of Tata Steel Europe's infrastructure.
The Clydebridge Steelworks, also known as Clydebridge Works, is a steel works in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
The manufacturing sector in Wales was historically centred on the mining industry, with slate, coal, tinplate and steel being important industries. Today, while traditional industries remain in smaller quantities, manufacturing in Wales is increasingly specialised and diverse, including parts of the automotive, aerospace, medical and technological industries.
51°34′31″N2°53′34″W / 51.57536°N 2.89284°W
