How Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station will become 'cold and dark' before iconic towers demolished

Renowned playwright James Graham, the man behind the BBC's Sherwood series, has been among those urging the cooling towers to be kept

The man in charge of closing down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station has explained what it will take to make the site "cold and dark" as its demolition nears. Network Rail and the nearby East Midlands Airport are among the organisations that will have to be consulted before the eight colossal cooling towers are brought down following almost 60 years of power generation.

Sean Atton, the decommissioning manager at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, says it is too early to say how the demolition may affect organisations like East Midlands Airport. Asked whether some airport services may have to be disrupted during demolition, Mr Atton said: "That's further down the line.

"We'll do whatever we can to make sure other businesses are not affected. My role is to decommission the site, then we get some specialists in."

The last unit at the power station was officially closed down at 3.35pm on Monday (September 30), having been generating for 57 years. Around 40 members of staff are set to leave the site at the end of October, with some retiring and others moving on to new careers.

The remaining 120 staff members are being retained to assist with the decommissioning process - which is set to take around two years overall. Mr Atton, who first came to the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2010 as a production manager, said: "The whole process of decommissioning is to make it what we call cold and dark.

"What we mean by that is all the electrical supplies are dead, all the hazardous substances have gone, and at that point we can then hand over to demolition." The decommissioning itself will see the 280 hectare site being split into three major zones, each of which will be shut down in turn.

In terms of the demolition itself, Mr Atton says a contract with a demolition company should be agreed in the first half of 2025 at the earliest. The decommissioning manager said: "There will be quite a lot of liaison we need to do with the highways agency, Network Rail, the airport, before we move into demolishing the cooling towers."

Ratcliffe's eight cooling towers stand at a height of 114 metres, with the walls of each tower being seven inches thick and constructed from reinforced draught concrete. News of the power station's closure has already led to the creation of a petition to save the cooling towers as a monument to Nottinghamshire's industrial heritage.

Renowned playwright James Graham, the man behind the BBC's Sherwood series, has been among those urging the cooling towers to be kept. Yet Mike Lockett, the UK Country Chair at Uniper, said: "The plan for the site includes a full redevelopment, including the site where the towers are, so that overall redevelopment will lead to the towers coming down."

The last Nottinghamshire power station cooling towers to come down were based at the old High Marnham power station in Retford, where demolition took place in 2012. The cooling towers and chimney at the former Cottam power station, also near Retford, are also scheduled to be demolished before the end of 2025.

At Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the focus for now is on getting the site ready for the future. Mr Atton added: "The main challenges I think are getting the team who have been here operating the plant for 57 years to switch gears and move into a phase now where we are decommissioning. It's a real change for all of the staff here who have spent many years looking after this place, loving it, nurturing it, making sure we're still keeping it running, to then move into a space where actually we're going to start taking it apart."