Finding out the location	very easy
Access	very easy
Safety	unsafe
Risk of being seen	high
General condition of the place	bad
Traces of vandalism	none or very few
Good place for taking pictures?	good
Did you see other people?	none or very few

Visit date    May 28 2021 at 15 hr
Visit duration    1 hour

This building was a purpose built office and print facility for regional newspaper Daily Echo up until early 2021. After 24 years based at this location, the Daily Echo moved its offices to Ocean Village, Southampton. The building is soon to be demolished to make way for three new warehouses, used for storage and distribution.

The explore itself was relatively easy, to begin with at least. We ducked under a wide gap in a fence and circled the building, dodging CCTV cameras in case they were still active. We circled the building looking for an entry point. As we tried doors and judged whether we’d fit through open windows, we continued our way around the print press building. As we reached the far side of the building, we realised entry was going to be much easier than squeezing through an open window. There was a wide hole seemingly blown through the side of the building, littered with rubble and jagged metal. We climbed the heap of debris to see the impressively large industrial building open up before us.

We explored the building, seeing large printing machinery and imagining newspapers working their way along the conveyer belt just a few months previously. Suddenly, an alarm sounded. We stopped to try to work out where it was coming from. It seemed strange that we had got so far into the building before an alarm was triggered. We left the building and hid in some bushes, waiting to see if the alarm would stop, and trying to confirm whether it was us that had tripped it. It soon became clear that the alarm was coming from the office building that was part of the complex. We left the site promptly. As we walked along the road a security van sped past, and we were thankful we hadn’t taken the risk of staying in the building.

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