Visteon Plant, Swansea - August 2015

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baal

Well-known member
Joined
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Wales
Found this one while looking for another place I had spotted. Swansea Visteon plant was originally built in 1959 for the Prestcold fridge company and was bought by Ford who manufactured car axle and transmission components there. They used to make gearboxes for Jaguar amongst others. It went into recievership in 2009 after ford sold it to Visteon, with the loss of thousands of jobs. Quite a lot of history in this place.

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This place is enormous, it stands in a 120,000m2 site and we went there planning to spend an hour looking around. It took about 2 hours in the end. The main factory goes on for ever and looking from one end to the other made Welsh_noir look like a dot in the distance. Its the emptiest factory I've ever been in, its been completely stripped of everything, apart from a few chairs and tables there is not much there. I noticed a board that said Lassco had been there, they are are an architectural salvage company. Quite a lot of light fittings and bulbs laying around though.

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Looks like nobody has been here for a while, not even the local gypsies who get in everywhere around here. Nothing broken or smashed, not bad as its been shut for 6 years. Makes a change to the smashed up warzones I'm used to. Canteen still has tables and chairs in place but nearly all the rooms are empty shells. The whole factory floor is covered with bird feathers and droppings and there is a board listing hazards warning you about it.

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The only room with fittings in is the clean room for the computers, which has big handles and sealing doors like a fridge.

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From what I remember you really have taken photos of the only things in the entire place. Everything was auctioned off by the recievers and they did an unusually good job. I suspect a lot of it went to China and India. Thanks for posting.
 
Thank you for all your comments.
Yes the place is huge but empty, you really have to go in there to appreciate how massive it is. Not much to see but still a cool place.
 
yeah it was massive, i even lost you for ten minuets at one point. it was nice to go smewhere where vandels havent been yet for a change. i missed that wine bottle though baal.
 
Love huge open places like this, the sense of space compared to it's heyday rammed with machinery and workers is stark and a little foreboding. Great set of pics there :)
 
I worked at a Visteon factory, in Hungary in 2008 and they were planning how to move all the plant from the Swansea factory. This was before ford sold the factory to Visteon.
 
Hi Chloe, please read the forum rules, asking questions like this isn't allowed. The idea is you either enjoy other people's photos or you go look for yourself.
 
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Sorry I was just wondering if it's in use today as I've googled it and it's coming up as somewhere that is in use
 
Nice post Baal. I fancy something similar, but with much more content! How do you fancy coming?
 
I used to visit the place in the 90s when I worked for Jaguar. It was one of the grimmer outposts of Ford's empire. I remember it in black and white! The views over Jersey Marine and Port Talbot weren't great either. I thought Ford sold it off to Visteon in about 2000. The guys there were worried about their pensions!
 
I used to visit the place in the 90s when I worked for Jaguar. It was one of the grimmer outposts of Ford's empire. I remember it in black and white! The views over Jersey Marine and Port Talbot weren't great either. I thought Ford sold it off to Visteon in about 2000. The guys there were worried about their pensions!

Yes ford sold it to visteon but it didn't last long before it went under.
I remember going past there when I was a kid and at the front of the building there is a circular room and they used to put old cars in there. They used to change all the time but they had ford GTs, model Ts and other cool fords in there.
 

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