In 1953 National Titanium Pigments Ltd (or Laporte Titanium Ltd) established a titanium dioxide manufacturing plant on the site of the former gun battery. The plant became known as the "Battery works". Through the latter part of the 20th century the plant was expanded and modernised, later becoming part of SCM Corporation (1983), Hanson plc (1986), Millennium Chemicals (1996), and Cristal (2007). In the 1960s a number of companies (Doverstrand, Revertex, Harco) developed chemical plants producing synthetic lattices and resins at a site south-east of the "Battery Works", also on the estuary foreshore. After a series of company reorganisations and takeovers, the works were organised under a single company, Synthomer, by 2002.