Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station stands beside the A453 near junction 24 of the M1 motorway in Nottinghamshire. The eight cooling towers and the 199-metre chimney rise above the flat landscape for miles around. A branch of the Midland Main Line runs alongside, with East Midlands Parkway station just next to the site. The station was built in the 1960s for the Central Electricity Generating Board and closed in 2024 after 56 years of operation. Its architecture features white cladding on the boiler and turbine houses, with vertical bands of glass and four concrete coal bunkers above the roof. The station once supplied enough electricity for about two million people, burning five and a half million tonnes of coal a year in the 1980s. It won the CEGB’s Hinton Cup twice for good housekeeping and set a British record when one of its units ran for 250,000 hours. Environmental controls were added later, including flue gas desulphurisation and selective catalytic reduction to cut harmful emissions. A small solar array was installed in 2009 to heat and light the administration block. Visitors can still see the decommissioned turbine hall and the brown chimney beside it. The eight cooling towers dominate the skyline, and the tall chimney remains a landmark. The site includes the Technology Centre where research continues under Uniper. The railway sidings that once delivered coal are now silent, and the last coal train arrived in June 2024. The power station’s closure marked the end of coal-fired electricity in the United Kingdom after 142 years.