Driving along the motorway is rarely the most exhilarating form of travel. If you’re in the passenger seat, most of the time there’s not much to look at, so anything exciting or unusual is always appreciated.
Unfortunately for any I Spy enthusiasts on the M1, the eight impressive cooling towers at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station are set to be destroyed by 2030. Their fates were sealed earlier this month when Historic England and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) denied an application from the Twentieth Century Society (C20) to register them as listed buildings.
Once described by sculptor Anthony Gormley as the ‘Stonehenge of the carbon age’, most of these endangered concrete behemoths were built in the 1960s. This particular set was designed by architects Godfrey Rossant and JW Gebarowicz, and were in use until 2024 when the power station was finally put out of commission.
The council now wants to tear them, and the rest of the plant that they are connected to, down in order to make space for a new, carbon-neutral manufacturing facility. C20, however, believes that the move is ‘short-sighted’.
‘The transition to a greener, cleaner energy network is a profoundly positive step for the UK and one that must be welcomed’, the society recognised in a statement following DCMS’ decision to allow the demolition to proceed. However, it noted: ‘By eradicating our post-war cooling towers we are in danger of obliterating the most awe-inspiring legacy of a vanishing era’.
It would prefer to see the towers ‘imaginatively repurposed’, which could involve them being ‘turned into giant art objects, educational science parks’, or, alternatively, ‘simply left as enigmatic markers in the landscape’. It’s calling on any mid-century architecture fans to sign a petition to ‘Save Britain's Cooling Towers’ – which you can do here.
But it seems like this particular train has already left the station. Historic England has confirmed that the buildings ‘do not have the architectural interest requisite for listing’, and that it has ‘no plans to preserve a cooling tower’.
Historic England did note: ‘We do understand and appreciate the great affection that people have for power stations at Ratcliffe on Soar, which is why we implemented a detailed recording programme of post-war coal-fired power stations’.
The council plans to have all eight towers removed and the site cleared by 2030. They are among only 37 remaining cooling towers in the country, all of which are earmarked for demolition within the next decade.
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