The remains of the STC/Bookham factory, Paignton
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The remains of the STC/Bookham factory, Paignton by Tom Jolliffe as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The remains of the STC/Bookham factory, Paignton
Image: © Tom Jolliffe Taken: 26 Feb 2012
STC was at one time in the 1980s the largest employer in Torbay employing around 5000 staff. A multinational company, it received very large Government support to develop new buildings on the site. Subsequently, a decision was taken to relocate the majority of the business elsewhere in the world. There were widescale redundancies. The enterprise was later taken on by Bookham on a much reduced basis. Eventually, this too left the site. Many of the newly built buildings later became home to what is now South Devon College - these are to the rear of the site away from the road. Today the old STC buildings are being cleared from the site which is part of a very large redevelopment programme along the Torbay ring road. In this view, the tower which still seems to house a transmitter mast has been left standing.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
50.41464
Longitude
-3.579697