More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Is the sight of your own four walls becoming duller and duller each week? If so, read on as we've decided to take a look inside somewhere which you might find more interesting.
Each week we're digging in the archives to find pictures of places in Kent that you will recognise from the outside, but perhaps have never seen from the inside.
This week we are featuring the former Aylesford Newsprint site.
For almost a century Aylesford Newsprint was a jewel in Kent’s economy, but now it sits abandoned as a reminder of a declining industry.
The shock announcement came just weeks after workers were offered pay rises, and in 2013 the company had recorded a turnover of £139 million.
But in a statement, administrators said the business had been making a loss for several years and could not continue.
The rise of digital media and a flooded marketplace were blamed for the closure.
However, because the site was derelict, urban explorers gained access to the plant, bypassing security to navigate the corridors and giant machinery rooms and documenting their experience with a series of fascinating photographs.
An explorer calling himself ‘Maniac’ posted an in-depth report into the trip on online forum 28 Days Later.
Maniac said the exploration had been a while in the making, with several previous fruitless trips to the site.
Security at the paper mill was high, with regular patrols of guards with dogs keeping potential intruders away.
Maniac took advantage of a quiet period and explored the mill with another user known as KentUrbex.
They charted the paper making process through pictures, from the warehouse where most of the recycled print in the South East ended up to the gigantic production machine, PM14.
PM14 was 100m long and 10m high and paper used to rush through it at 60mph.
The product would have then transferred to an even larger storage facility, measuring 100m by 28m and with room for 10,000 tonnes of paper.
In January 2016, a spokesman for administrators KPMG said W & S Recycling had bought the two paper mills, equipment and buildings to sell and would not restart paper production.
Much of the fixtures and fittings from the site later moved to China.
After closure, receivers sold much of the equipment to a company there.
In a six-month operation, a total of 450 containers of machinery and equipment were shipped 12,000 miles by sea to Beiliang, a port near the North Korean border where they were re-assembled as a mill.
In November last year, speculation mounted a buyer had been found for the site.
There were reports that Panattoni, the largest developer of logistics facilities in Europe, has reached a deal with receivers to purchase the site for £75m.
The 100-acre plot between the M20 and the River Medway has been derelict since closed in 2015.
The land is dedicated for employment use in Tonbridge and Malling council’s Local Plan.
The site has since been demolished.
