Historic brewery to shut down after travellers’ £100k wrecking spree

A BREWERY left so badly damaged by an invasion of travellers that 1,700 pints of ale had to be poured away is now ending production at the ransacked site.

The Thwaites brewery has been making beer for two centuries at its headquarters in Blackburn, Lancashire, but was torn apart in three days last month by 100 travellers, who left behind an estimated £100,000 of damage.

After police said they ‘negotiated with the travellers to encourage them to move’, the 21 caravans were escorted to the M65 motorway on May 28 and allowed to drive off.

Workers returned after the bank holiday weekend to ransacked desks, smashed windows and human waste strewn around the yard. Copper wiring had been stolen, and there were fears the beer stocks had been ‘contaminated’.

As of last night, not a single arrest had been made.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw the damage they caused. It makes no sense,’ said Harry Brunt, a brewer at Thwaites for 21 years. ‘They were just animals. It felt so sad to pour away our beer.’

Roger Elliott, the brewery’s area business manager, said: ‘I have worked here for a third of my life and I’m proud to work here. I’m really angry that people can come into our workplace and cause such destruction, it’s redefined a lack of respect.’

Production is now set to move four miles away to Thwaites’s new £12million headquarters in Mellor Brook, which opens later this year.

Rick Bailey, Thwaites chief executive, said: ‘It’s really upsetting that 211 years of brewing at our site in Blackburn has ended in this fashion.’

Blackburn MP Kate Hollern described the mess and vandalism as ‘absolutely appalling’.

‘I want to see more action from the police because, for me, it was a breakin – there was theft and criminal damage,’ she said.