‘A golden opportunity’: Port Talbot fights to keep its steelmaking tradition alive

In Port Talbot, the steel plant dominates the skyline and local life. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/the Observer

For more than a century, the steelworkers of Port Talbot have poured molten metal: it has been the lifeblood flowing through the heart of their coastal south Wales town.

Rising between Swansea Bay and the heather-clad hills of west Glamorgan, the plant’s steaming chimney stacks have shaped not just the skyline but the history, economics and even culture of the community.