Monday 5 March 2012

Richborough Power Station Cooling Towers and Chimney to be Demolished on Sunday 11th March 2012 Perhaps


This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Thanet to attract huge crowds of people to view a major event, I would guess that with no publicity and no organisation thousands of people will turn up anyway.

I have tried to find out from the council what they are doing about this event, there is nothing on their website, nothing on the council funded Thanet tourism website.

I can’t even find what time they are going to be demolished, only that the road closure is from 8am. 


Here is the road closure notification:

Temporary Road Closure – A256 Ramsgate Road, Sandwich and Sandwich Road & Richborough Way, Ramsgate – Sunday 11 March 2012

It will be necessary to close sections of the A256 Ramsgate Road, Sandwich and Sandwich Road & Richborough Way, Ramsgate on Sunday 11 March 2012

It is planned the closure will be for up to 1 hour during the morning, sometime from 8.00 am onwards, as signposted on site.

The closure will be in the vicinity of Richborough Port.

It is suggested that drivers should consider alternative routes as long delays are expected in the area on the morning that these works go ahead.

A contingency alternative route will be brought in to use and signposted, if required on the day.

This will be via the A2 to Brenley Corner then via the A299 Thanet Way (to avoid the closure of the A28 in Canterbury, at Sturry Level Crossing).

There will be no access for through traffic between the north junction with A256 Sandwich By-pass and the new Sevenscore Roundabout, whilst the road is closed.

Public Footpath EE42 will be closed where it meets the exclusion zone around the works, as indicated by signs and barriers on site.

The closure is for the safety of the public during demolition works, being carried out by DDS Demolition.

These works are weather dependent, and the timing may be affected by adverse conditions.

If conditions prevent the works going ahead on 11 March, they will be deferred until one of the following two Sundays.


In the usual Alice in Wonderland way of things in Thanet I have now added “perhaps” to the blog title, it seems this isn’t a major event after all.

I would guess if as many people turn up as used to, to watch the Broadstairs fireworks displays, then it may be cancelled on health and safety grounds due to inadequate crowd control. 



Looking at video footage of cooling tower demolition it seems I got the watercolour picture completely wrong too, it should have much more dust and less fire. I would guess I would have to have lessons in how to paint dust with watercolour, perhaps I should try painting with something dryer.

6 comments:

  1. It's being demolished between 8:30 & 9:00 AM according to The Isle of Thanet Gazette's Facebook page.

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  2. Peter I think will be demolished between 8am and 4pm next Sunday, the one after or the one after that would be more accurate.

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  3. The statement from the demolition company is that this is NOT a public event and spectators are not welcome. That's why they are not confirming any time.

    The towers are already drilled up for charges and a test firing has left a fair sized hole in one of them - viewable from public path EE42. The weather conditions on Sunday morning are anything like today, I can't see it going ahead. The chief rigger Full Metal Challenge which was filmed there 10 years ago, said you could stand at a 45 degree angle inside the towers on some days, never mind inside, just as easy outside!

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  4. *If the weather conditions, ugh anonymous commenting...

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  5. another chance to have a moan michael it seems you spend lots doing it

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  6. Not as much as you moan about Michael anon!

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.