This historical ACT of vandalism must be avenged.

In 1938 the Blackburn Meadows power station was built to power the Steel industry of Attercliffe, a former industrial suburb of northeast Sheffield, lying on the south bank of the River Don, it originally grew as a small hamlet centred on Attercliffe Chapel, and was part of the parish of Sheffield. The name Attercliffe can be traced back as far as an entry in the Domesday book -Ateclive- meaning at the cliffe, a small escarpment that lay alongside the River Don.

Attercliffe has long been an industrial area, but by the early 20th century, there was also a large residential population and high-class shops, John Banners Department Store (Banners) in particular. The area declined post World War II as slum housing was cleared and not replaced, while industries closed or moved to larger sites further out of Sheffield.

Its location on the Sheffield Supertram, the completion of the Five Weirs Walk and construction of the Don Valley Stadium and Sheffield Arena in the 1990s brought some life back to the area. As part of this regeneration, new house building started in 2002.

Meadowhell, the shopping centre, is within a stones throw from where the towers stood, and was built by Bovis on the site of a derelict steelworks. It was opened in 1990. With a floor area of 1,500,000 sq ft (139,355 m²), it is the sixth largest shopping centre in the UK.
The owners British Land Company PLC is one of the largest property development and investment companies in the United Kingdom. It converted to a Real Estate Investment Trust when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is headquartered in London.

The Cooling Towers overlooked Attercliffe and Sheffield for the past 70 years, the M1 motorway next to them was constructed in four phases; the majority of the motorway was opened in 1959 and between 1965 and 1968.

The two ends of the motorway were extended later; the southern end in 1977 and the northern end in 1999, part of the motorway goes over the Tinsley Viaduct, a two-tier road bridge in Sheffield; the first of its kind in the UK. It carries the M1 and the A631 1033 metres over the Don Valley, from Tinsley to Wincobank, also crossing the Sheffield Canal, the Midland Main Line and the former South Yorkshire Railway line from Tinsley Junction to Rotherham Central. The Supertram route to Meadowhell runs below part of the viaduct on the trackbed of the South Yorkshire Railway line to Barnsley.

The viaduct was opened in March 1968 and cost £6 million to build. The structure is unusual in that it is built as steel box girders, at a time when most long span bridges were being built of post tension concrete deck design. This use of steel has allowed the viaduct to be strengthened, in 1983 and again in 2006. The recent works to strengthen the bridge were a very complex operation, with a lot of the work happening inside the Box beam spine. The works took over 3 years and cost £82 million (14 x the original bridge building cost).

Along with this there is the Blackburn Meadows sewage works, this having a impact in the quality of life for people in the area, where school children have to be timed in and out at playtime due to the pollution, and people are often left with the windows shut near the Sewage works.

The owners E-0N have an plans to build a £60 million biomass-fueled power plant, and on the 16th July 2008 they received approval for this plant at the former Blackburn Meadows power station, it is without doubt this along with plans to expand (and build housing) from the Owners of Medowhell will see an increase pollution for the area.

On the 24th August 2008 around 10,000 people came out to watch Sheffield’s world famous Tinsley cooling towers be demolished, and in a defiant moment, the North Tower stood for over 2 hours with a ‘raised finger’ of resistance.

Like the protest over their plans to build a coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, see:  http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/home E-On’s plans must be resisted, and their application for a Biomass Generator has not been actually been granted.

In a rare moment, Attercliffe MP Clive Betts condemned the destruction as “an act of historical vandalism”.

And we could not agree more.

A group of local people and others have asked E-ON and British Land to donate a large sum of funds to The Tinsley Tree Project for the planting of trees in the area to reduce the pollution; As part of the Campaign to save the Towers  http://www.dontgo.co.uk/ Sheffield launched a project named:

COOLING THE TOWERS is our project to turn the disused cooling towers on the edge of Sheffield into massive new works of art.

We want a new symbol for our city, representing what Sheffield means today: creative, independent and different. We’ve won Channel 4’s Big Art Project, and they’re helping us make it happen.
How crass then was it of E-ON to come along and trespass against the desires of the People of Sheffield, who openly said No to the demolition, and supported this project.

We must stop the plans for a biomass-fueled power plant, and look towards forcing E-ON to drop these plans, if this is at all their intention.

Some people suspect, and rightly so, that there are no real plans for their proposed project, that the demolition was to increase and market the land of the former Blackburn Meadows power station for profit gain. Neither the plans for a biomass-fueled power plant, or the selling of this land must happen, we must begin again to campaign for a better use of this land, such as a nature reserve connecting to the the Blackburn Meadows Nature Reserve, and that monies are given for planting of trees in the area along with improvements to the footpaths of the canals, this opening them up for better public use.

The derelict rail line that runs past this site, and behind the former Magna Steel works is used as extension for the Supertram, this would be a true green revolution and place Sheffield on the green map giving back what E-ON and British land have so far been allowed to take from the People of Sheffield. We must act to make this happen and if need be force them to stop what MP Clive Betts names as an act of historical vandalism. It must be stopped.