Ironbridge Cooling Towers: 60 people request to push the button on demolition
More than 60 people have put their name forward to press the button for the demolition of the iconic Ironbridge cooling towers.
Developer Harworth said it had received a lot of attention from people wanting to trigger the explosives that will topple the giant structures.
But the company says the job needs to go to a qualified explosives engineer.
Plans for the demolition were submitted to Shropshire Council last week, and the cost of the work is expected to be in excess of £10 million.
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Iain Thomson, of Harworth, said: “Clearly there’s a lot of interest from people in ‘pressing the button’ on the demolition so to speak.
“As for all our other demolition jobs however, the pressing of the button has to be the responsibility of a qualified explosives engineer in order for the job to be completed safely.
Mr Thomsson added: “No date has yet been agreed to bring the towers down but as we’ve communicated before, we’ll be giving people a full week’s notice prior to their eventual demolition.”
The Harworth spokesman stressed that the company still intended to tear down the cooling towers in November, so long as planning permission for the work is given.
The towers will be pulled down by installing explosives just above the metal-framed legs which hold the towers up.
Charges will only be placed around two thirds of the circumference in order to control the direction in which they will collapse.
The company said it expected the towers to be demolished by the end of the year, although clearance work on the site would continue until September 2021.
The terracotta-tinted towers, as well as the rest of the power station, are expected to make way for hundreds of homes and leisure facilities in the area.
The redevelopment of the site, which could include 1,000 new homes as well as industrial development, is expected to run for a decade.
