Rotherham Business Features
Rotherham is still largely an industrial town. Although steel is still made here it not tempered or forged in the vast quantities of old. The Anglo-Dutch company Corus who ran the large concerns in Rotherham has been taken over by the Indian company Tata Steel but for now the plants in Rotherham are still open.
The last colliery at Maltby is still open but it is predicted to close in 2015 when the seam runs out. In 2009 Hargreaves Services who own the pit are intending to make a major investment here which will extend the working life of Maltby Colliery until 2025.
Glass is still made here, as are nut confectioneries. The flour mill, the last in the line of flour mills that have been in Rotherham since Domesday, is being demolished. Many of the other old trades and industries are long gone.
Towards the end of the 20th Century, Rotherham became a major player in the call centre trade, as redeveloped light industrial sites attracted some high-tech industries. Many of the jobs offer nothing better than poor conditions, bad pay and no security, yet people stand for it because some job is better than no job at all. There is also the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) at Waverley is the UK's premier advanced manufacturing technology park.
There are innumerable firms on innumerable trading estates and in loads of workshops all over Rotherham sinking, swimming, struggling, surviving and succeeding across a broad range of industries.