Fairytale of Greenwich

Season's greetings from Fairyland!

Well, actually, it's the Tate & Lyle factory (formerly Amylum) taken by Stevie with one of those starry filters which makes it look a whole lot better than I've ever seen it.

It's possibly the last Christmas that we'll see this particular sight - the place is allegedly closing down. I guess there aren't going to be that many residents who will mourn the extraordinary repertoire of odours that it pumps out (like Revels, really - you never know which one you're going to get...) but it will be much missed by the poor sods who actually rely on it for work.

I find myself wondering what will happen to this part of the river - one of the only industrial wharves left in this stretch, which, if memory serves, Ken had announced needed to stay industrial. But things have changed, and who can tell what will happen now. Ther's still a lot of industry there - we don't tend to think about it much, but it's a big bit of land - a walk round the Thames Path proves that, with much interesting stuff going on. Some bits of the path still remind me of something out of The Long Good Friday.

Will it be cleaned up and turned into flats? More of those million-quid Canary-Wharf-style pads that The Standard reckons City guys are selling-up more quickly than any area of the market? Or will it just quietly crumble and moulder away as fewer and fewer people use the Thames Path because the Lovells' Wharf development makes it look like it's closed...

But that's for another day. Today, I'm celebrating the joyous marriage of a few brake lights, street lamps, office strip-lighting - and a star filter. And, of course, the relationship between the Dome and a couple of puddles...

While I'm on the subject of Art around the A102M, if you have six minutes going begging, take a peek at the curiously compulsive film/animation Bus Stop by multi-media artist Christophe Bruchansky, shot in much the same place and possibly much the same time as Stevie's pics. Not much actually happens - but that seems to be rather the point...

Art, if not industry, thrives on the Peninsula...

Syral UK - You Heard It Here First, Folks...

I have received the following from someone calling themselves only "The Mole." Take special note of the last paragraph...

(The company is) "currently Syral UK, originally Tunnel Refineries - taken over by Amylum, taken over by Tate & Lyle, sold to Syral (last year) part of the Tereos group.

(It's a) plant processing wheat flour into starch, wheat proteins and glucose syrups, there is also a distillery (opened by Dennis Thatcher, no less) attached, manufacturing pure alcohol for the drinks industry. (Beefeater Gin, for one - TGP)

Appreciate these many chemical processes cause many interesting and varied smells. But many steps had been taken over the last few years to address the problem.

Anyhoo, the fact of the matter is that most of the products we make are in direct competition with yer bog standard sugar. The price of sugar until recently was fixed artificially high with all kinds of EU subsidies etc, which have now been been reduced hence the price of sugar falling. Couple that with our costs rapidly going up with the spiralling cost of wheat (our basic building block) and increasing energy costs. It wasn't looking good. In addition, under the ownership of Tate & Lyle, little or no investment was made. It has now reached the point where the plant is almost falling apart and needs major investment to rectify. Syral own around another 5 units in Europe, making similar products, none of which are running to full capacity - lack of demand etc.

So it looks like they've chosen the Greenwich site for the chop and supply customers from
the continent. Don't think being situated next to one of the most god awful traffic bottle necks in the country helped either.

As I said before, on Thursday it was announced that we had a max of 12 months left (various legs of the production could be wound down sooner). Like you and others, I'm still surprised no official announcement has been made - nothing on the internal web site either. They are now entered into negotiations with the unions in order to bash out redundancy packages etc etc. Apart from that it's business as usual.

Another interesting fact is that we actually rent the land off Morden College, and think it is stipulated that the land must be returned back to the flower strewn meadow it probably once was."

So, there you have it, guys. The only information I've been able to find out (and, indeed, as I have heard from others in more of a position to be able to discover stuff like this, that anyone has been able to find out.) I wouldn't hold your breath for the flower-strewn meadow, but hey - it's a thought...