Jon Pountney was one of two photographers to witness the final days inside Tata’s last blast furnace. Photograph: Jon Pountney View image in fullscreen Jon Pountney was one of two photographers to witness the final days inside Tata’s last blast furnace. Photograph: Jon Pountney Wales Eerie silence and ‘still surviving’: what happened next after steel town’s last blast furnace shut down Exhibition in Port Talbot is part of project exploring how communities experience endings and transitions
Bethan McKernan Wales correspondent Wed 12 Aug 2026 08.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google M argaret Heggett, 95, does not remember a time when Port Talbot was ever quiet. Born and raised in the shadow of the steelworks, with a father, brother and husband who worked there, she never imagined what the town could look or sound like without its blast furnaces.
“I’m not saying it was beautiful, but there were jobs. We did know the closure was coming and we have to move with the times but it’s affected the town a lot and it’s very sad,” she said.
The south Wales town, one of the most deprived in the UK, is still grappling with the closure of the blast furnaces at its Tata Steel plant, which shut down in 2024 after more than 100 years, costing nearly 3,000 jobs.
The transition has been difficult, with knock-on effects for supply chain workers and local businesses. Now, two years after the last blast furnace fell silent, an exhibition is telling the story of the closure and what has happened to the town since.
View image in fullscreen The steelworks seen from the mountains overlooking Port Talbot. Photograph: Jon Pountney Steeling Ourselves , created by the Rhondda-based photographer Jon Pountney, combines photography and portraits of Port Talbot with interviews with the people living there, celebrating their “strength, creativity and determination to shape the future while preserving the memories and experiences that matter”.
On display at the Plaza, a community hub, the exhibit is part of After the End, a research project by Exeter, Oxford and Liverpool John Moores universities exploring how communities experience endings and transitions.
The research is intended to contribute to wider arguments about the social impact of major industrial changes, and to keep local voices in the conversation about regeneration strategies.
For many interviewees, the silence after the last blast furnace shut down was eerie. “I used to camp out at night and the light was better than the northern lights,” one contributor said. “When you’re making iron, there’s 1,000-degree heat that lights the sky up and the shadow changes and it’s like a show, you know, and that’s what we were brought up on. I loved that.”
View image in fullscreen A woman sunbathing on a beach with the works in the distance. Photograph: Jon Pountney Pountney was one of two photographers to witness the final days inside Tata’s last blast furnace before it closed. The exhibit also captures the beats of life in Port Talbot – friends messing about near the water, camping chairs on nearby Aberavon beach, terrace streets, pushchairs, meadows and wildlife – with the huge steelworks site almost always present in the background.
Heggett said: “When I was asked to take part in the project, I’d had a glass of wine, so I thought ‘why not?’. It’s been lovely to reflect on.”
View image in fullscreen Margaret Heggett, 95, was photographed for the project. Photograph: Jon Pountney People in the town felt s…