NOVELIS CLOSURE: Site produced metal for Spitfires (From South Wales Argus)

NOVELIS CLOSURE: Site produced metal for Spitfires

9:50am Thursday 5th March 2009 in News By Jane Helmich and Alison Sanders

At one time more than 8,000 people worked on the Rogerstone site producing aluminium and its origins date back to the Second World War.

In the 19th century, there was an iron works in the area and later Nettlefolds steelworks arrived.

It merged with Guest, Keen and Co in the early 20th century but GKN closed its Rogerstone works in 1938.

Kim Fry's book about Rogerstone tells how the air ministry approached the Northern Aluminium Company to build a factory on the site, later to become Alcan.

By 1944, they were producing parts for aircraft including the Spitfire.

During the 1940s, 8,000 people were employed at the works and by the end of the 1950s a new mill was opened to meet increasing demand for aluminium, according to the Images of Wales book.

Ms Fry wrote that it became Europe's largest continuous strip mill.

In the 1970s, it made aluminium sections for the QE2 and invested £5 million in a modernisation programme to meet demands of a growing market followed by another £10 million just a couple of years later.

Although it still employed 2,000 people in the 1970s, the number of workers continued to fall over the coming years.

Novelis was created in 2005 as a spin-off from Alcan to carry on most of the aluminium rolled product businesses and two years later it was acquired by India-based Hindalco.