Four cooling towers at the former Eggborough Power Station have been demolished in a “major milestone” in the regeneration of the site.
The 90-metre towers, constructed from 11,000 tonnes of reinforced concrete, which have been an iconic landmark in the area since they were built in 1967, came crashing down in a controlled demolition just before 8am on Sunday, August 1.
The plant, which employed over 300 people at its peak, stopped generating power in March 2018 and was bought by St Francis Group in 2019, for regeneration and development of the site. The initiated collapse of the first four towers was done through the use of high velocity explosives and the remaining four towers and other buildings will also be demolished over the next 18 months to create a blank canvas for future development.
National demolition contractor DSM and Core 62 Limited (a joint venture between St Francis Group and Commercial Development Projects), liaised with North Yorkshire Police, the HSE, Selby District Council and specialist independent consultants to “meticulously plan” the project over a 10-month period. On the day of the demolition a major traffic diversion was implemented around the site, and a 350m diameter exclusion zone around the towers manned by 40 DSM security sentries and supported by Selby Police was set up around the area. DSM technical director, Billy Young said: “We are delighted that all the planning and hard work that has led up to today has enabled us to have a successful demolition. “We appreciate that a large number of Eggborough residents and businesses could have been disrupted by the work, but we have worked hard to communicate with them behind the scenes and by correspondence to minimise this in as much as practicably possible. “We would like to thank them and the wider community for their patience so far and assure everyone that we will do all we can to minimise any further disruption.”
During the planning and co-ordination of the demolition DSM collaborated with National Grid and Northern Gas Networks to ensure that the network of services around the site were not affected and supplies to local residents and businesses were not disrupted. DSM installed specialist environmental monitoring equipment on and around the site to capture the energy levels from the implosion, to ensure that the levels were within industry recognised levels and posed no risk to persons or property. Immediately following the demolition cleaning crews were also deployed to clean adjacent roads of the dust resulting from the demolition.
Four of the eight cooling towers at Eggborough Power Station have been demolished. (05-08-77 SU)
