Approval given for Richborough cooling towers demolition

Plans to demolish three cooling towers and a chimney at Richborough power station in east Kent have been approved by Thanet District Council.

Councillors said it had to be carried out between March and November.

None of the structures have been used since 1996 and the former power station site has gradually been dismantled.

BFL Management Ltd, which wants to turn the 300-acre site into a green energy park, said the towers were structurally unsound and surplus to requirements.

Opponents of the demolition had been campaigning to save the structures, saying they were a local landmark which had dominated the east Kent skyline since the 1950s.

Richborough power station opened in 1962, burning coal and then oil to generate electricity for the national grid, until it was closed in 1996.