ICI Plant Protection Division is a British company founded in 1926 and developed a wide range of Paints (Crown, Delux etc) and ‘Specialty chemicals’. They were a very large FTSE100 company at their peak.
In 2007 the acquisition process of ICI by AkzoNobel began, eventually being bought for the sum of £8 Billion in the August of 2007. The adhesive side of ICI was sold to Henkel to appease the European commission in ensuring they didn’t overly dominate the market.
‘At 8 a.m. on 2 January 2008, completion of the takeover of ICI plc by AkzoNobel was announced. Shareholders of ICI received either £6.70 in cash or AkzoNobel loan notes to the value of £6.70 per one nominal ICI share. The adhesives business of ICI was transferred to Henkel as a result of the deal, while AkzoNobel agreed to sell its Crown Paints subsidiary to satisfy the concerns of the European Commissioner for Competition’
Strangely, the CEO of ICI at the time, Sir John Harvey-Jones, died only 7 days later on the 9th of January 2008 at the age of 83.
The offices and laboratory in Fernhurst were closed at some point in mid 2008, and look like they were cleared by contractors in August 2008, almost exactly a year after the acquisition process begun.
There have been multiple plans for turning the site into housing over the years, yet 9 years later nothing has happened.
Text – courtesy of Gromr123 at Derelict Places
These are my images from a brief exploration of the site in February 2018. I didn’t go inside, there was a local resident watching us with suspicion and even though we stopped and talked to him to explain we just wanted to take some photographs I wasn’t comfortable going in with him near.
The building felt ominous and threatening but then that may just have been the presence of the watcher and too many horror movies, whatever the reason my photographs were all taken from outside – this time.
About Time. 
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