Site Under Development

Back in the late 1970's when I had a film camera, a photographer friend advised me to take pictures of places and things in the community, which I never did. Forty years on, things would have changed so much that the photo's I failed to take would be superb to look at now. It's always hard to remember how things were many years later. With that in mind I decided to do this aerial view before the site is fully developed.

The aerial picture is of the old Alcan site, Rogerstone, Newport, South Wales. It's the place where most of Britain's Aluminium foil that you used to wrap your sarnies and things was produced. It closed in 2009. The main blip pic shows some of the houses built since Sept 2014.

The extra photo shows the other half of the site where building has yet to start. It's a massive site! There's planning permission for up to some 1000 new houses, a new local centre including shops, an hotel and restaurant as well as a new primary school, a river side linear park, public open spaces and a playing field.

In March 2012, Walters Land purchased the site of the former aluminium factory from Alcan/Novelis in Rogerstone.  The site which covers an area of some 100 acres is located adjacent to the River Ebbw and it is approximately 4 km west of Newport City centre.

Since the 1760’s the site has had a number of industrial uses ranging from  copper works to a nail factory, a gas works, iron and steel works and eventually an aluminium factory.   From the 1990’s the industrial activities were gradually scaled down and finally in 2009 the last remaining factory building was closed.  All the former  factory buildings have now been demolished with the old  basements, pits, slabs and below ground structures still left intact.

Bellway Homes and Taylor Wimpey Homes are two of the developers building on the site.  Linc housing Association are to look after the affordable housing element of the development. It's known as Jubilee Park.