Smokestack lightning

This street, tells us, used to be “an alley of prostitutes and drugs.” The CEO of Sunderland-based developer and publisher Coatsink is talking about a road that runs alongside the train tracks near the top of the high street in Middlesbrough; beyond it there was once a post-industrial wasteland, framed by the flare stacks of the chemical plants beside the River Tees. This area inspired the opening shot of Blade Runner, Beardsmore points out. “And it literally looked like that.”