#540 – Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station #2

As I drove down this residential street on the way to the power station, I was struck by both the normality and abnormality of the scene. An ordinary street, with ordinary houses, and residents no doubt enjoying the lull between Christmas and New Year. And yet, there on the near horizon, as it has been for nearly fifty years is the hissing, steaming, smoking bulk of the power station. I imagine it’s something you become desensitised to and probably don’t even notice if you live there and have grown up there. It’s just part of the landscape, heck the nearest pub is called the ‘Eight Towers’, a reference to the eight cooling towers.

And yet soon, the coal stockpiles will be gone, the boilers and generators will be switched off and the 160 people who work there will get their P45’s or stay on to start decommissioning the site. Soon, the cooling towers and the enormous chimney will be felled, and the landscape will feel a little bit emptier……