THE winner of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to demolish the four North towers at Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station has been revealed, with a charity raffle raising over £14,600 for Warrington Disability Partnership.
Senior engineer Stan Gordon, who worked on the site for many years, was on hand to make the draw at Warrington Disability Partnership’s HQ at Beaufort Street, Warrington, with the winning ticket 11739 belonging to Grace Taylor.
Grace will now get the opportunity to press the big red button to demolish the towers, which are 50 years old this year, on Sunday, December 3rd this year.
Working with Peel Holdings, local charity Warrington Disability Partnership (WDP) ran the mega raffle to offer one lucky winner the chance to demolish the 4 North towers and raise vital funds to support local disabled people and those affected by disability. The raffle raised a total of £14,680.
The draw for the winning ticket
The raffle was the idea of Warrington Borough Council’s Director fo Growth Steve Park, who liaised with Peel to provide the opportunity to support WDP.
Mr Park said that while the brownfield Fiddler’s Ferry site was important for employment and housing, it would bring “emotions” seeing the towers demolished as they were “always a sign of home.”
The power station occupies one of the largest brownfield sites in the North West.
Peel’s re-development proposals involve about 101 hectares of employment land and 1,800 homes. After demolition has been completed, a programme of restoration will be carried out and the site will be fenced until redevelopment starts.
Peel NRE have produced a 10-15 year mixed-use master plan for the site. New developments for industrial use and new homes in a sustainable community are planned to provide jobs, skills and address housing shortages in the borough.,
The plans will also create extensive new parkland and wildlife areas to enhance the environment.
Peel NRE is part of the regeneration business Peel L&P. They have acquired the site from energy company SSE Thermal.
Fiddler’s Ferry and its eight cooling towers were decommissioned in 2020 in line with Government policy to phase out coal-fired facilities by 2025.
An application to build Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station was proposed in 1962. It was built by the Cleveland Bridge Company between 1964 and 1971, and came into full operation in 1973.
There are eight cooling towers arranged in two groups of four located to the north and south of the main building. There is a single chimney located to the east of the main building.
Demolition will take place over three phases, starting on December 3.
1 Comment
I wish I had known about this. My husbands father was a scaffolder and worked on building Fiddlers Ferry power station. This was in the days before health and safety guard rails were put on scaffolding. Sadly he fell off at a fair height and was injured. He had to have a metal plate in his head but he developed meningitis and died. His wife was pregnant with her second baby which also died after birth. I assume it was premature. My husband was only 2 when it happened and can’t remember his dad.