Iconic cooling towers are demolished

The hills surrounding Ironbridge were packed with visitors this morning as the iconic cooling towers were demolished at 11am.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) were on hand to support the demolition across the 350-acre site which according to the Harworth Group Plc went exactly as planned.

Crews were in place to support the demolition and on-scene fire commander, group manager Scott Hurford said: “We are delighted with the way the demolition went, we had plans in place for ensuring public safety.

“We had planned for a variety of scenarios from animal rescues to supporting the public with injuries but thankfully everything went to plan and we had no requests for support.”

“We’ll now be looking towards the next phase in the New Year, a huge thank you to the public who came to view this historical day.

It cost more than £10 million to destroy the four 120-metre high cooling towers.

Explosive charges were planted on a black ring close to the bottom of each tower, each with sufficient power to blow away the metal-framed legs which held the towers up.

The demolition was live streamed, visit our Facebook to watch it again or take a look at some captured footage from around the Ironbridge Gorge.

 

6th December, 2019