No Excuses
No Exploitation
Only Liberation

Manchester Slaughterhouse Finally Demolished Years After Exposé and Closure

The former Pilgrim’s UK Pork Factory on Bow Street, on the border of Dukinfield and Ashton-under-Lyne in Manchester, UK, has been completely demolished, three years after the site, exposed by an undercover investigation, was abruptly closed.

The facility, once part of Pilgrim’s UK, one of Britain’s largest meat providers, shut down operations in 2023. All warehouse buildings within the site boundary have now been torn down as part of the approved scheme by Tameside council.

In May 2023, footage of the use of CO2 to gas British pigs to death at this abattoir was made public amid calls to ban this method of slaughter for being inhumane. The footage, obtained by vegan activist Joey Carbstrong by planting an undercover camera at the abattoir in February 2021, showed pigs in distress and pain as they are herded into a cage and then lowered into a gas chamber. This method of slaughter is common in the UK and other countries. In February 2024, Carbstrong released his first feature-length documentary titled Pignorant, about the use of gas chambers to kill pigs in the UK, and how these animals are kept before they are sent to die horribly in slaughterhouses.

On 7^th July 2026, Carbstrong posted a YouTube video of the demolished site, commenting, “Look at this. Look at this. Pilgrims Ashton underline the location of the horrific pig gas chamber being demolished. Demolition crews there taking the whole thing down. And here we are. We got some drone footage of the place completely flattened. If anyone’s not familiar with this place, this is the slaughterhouse gas chamber that was killing about 750,000 pigs a year. And we investigated it in February 2021 and brought out UK’s first ever vision from inside a pig CO2 gas chamber in the country.”

The demolition is only the first stage of a wider redevelopment plan for the former pig slaughterhouse. OREP Fund Propco 1 Limited is planning for new industrial and warehouse buildings, which would see the site repurposed for fresh commercial activity rather than any return to animal exploitation.

Jordi Casamitjana

“Originally from Catalonia, but resident in the UK for several decades, Jordi is a vegan zoologist and author, who has been involved in different aspects of animal protection for many years. In addition to scientific research, he has worked mostly as an undercover investigator, animal welfare consultant, and animal protection campaigner. He has been an ethical vegan since 2002, and in 2020 he secured the legal protection of all ethical vegans in Great Britain from discrimination in a landmark employment tribunal case that was discussed all over the world. He is also the author of the book, ‘Ethical Vegan: a personal and political journey to change the world’.”