COTES PARK INDUSTRIAL ESTATE - SEALED AIR
by SLHS on
Friday 11 October 2019
The story of Sealed Air on the Cotes Park Industrial Estate starts seventy odd years ago in 1947, when the Cotes Park Colliery and other mines and associated estates originally belonging to James Oakes & Company were nationalised and became part of the National Coal Board.
Along with the collieries, the National Coal Board also became the owners of the Riddings Windmills, as these processed the fodder for pit ponies and were part of the nationalised estate. The NCB started a programme of restructuring and the windmills became redundant to their requirements [production being centralised at Blackwell]. The site of the windmills was sold as an industrial complex and purchased by a company called Deosan, who, several years later, was bought out by an American company based in Chicago called Diversey. The Diversey Group continued production at Riddings but when they agreed that investment and expansion of the business was necessary, began to look elsewhere in the area.
By 1963 the National Coal Board had worked out the coal seams at Cotes Park and had hit geological problems and the colliery was slated for closure. The County and local councils had already earmarked the area for industrial use and when the colliery closed in 1963 they created the Cotes Park Industrial Estate in its place. One of the first companies to operate there was the Milk Marketing Board, who constructed a plant that was located within the footprint of the old colliery [although the actual sprawl of buildings, shafts and spoil heaps covered a much larger area]. They in turn created a new separate division known as Dairy Crest, and the Cotes Park unit became a part of this new enterprise.
PHOTO: The Sealed Air factory on Cotes Park Industrial Estate [2015]
Dairy Crest eventually closed their premises at Cotes Park and the site became available for another company wishing to expand their facilities. The Diversey Group then took over the site. They demolished the old creamery and after clearing the old plant they built a purpose made factory designed for their needs. The story would have ended there if not for the takeover of the Diversey Group by another American company called Johnson & Johnson, more familiar in the UK as the owners of various product brands such as furniture polish and baby lotions.
The massive corporation that was formed from the merger became JohnsonDiversey [the company name had no space in the middle!] which was then the subject of a takeover by Sealed Air [which as the name implies manufacture bubble wrap – amongst many thousands of other products]. As of 2019 Sealed Ait continue to operate at this site on the Cotes Park Industrial Estate.