Anders Hanson

Like most cities, Sheffield has its fair share of architectural triumphs and disasters. Much of the debate has centered on the future of Park Hill flats and the architectural merit of the city centre’s new St. Paul’s Hotel and St. Paul’s Place developments. One debate though that is becoming more high profile is on whether Tinsley Cooling Towers should be retained or demolished.

The future of the cooling towers is not a new debate. But at the very time that E.ON. is planning the demolition of the structures, the argument on their future is now going national thanks to Channel 4’s The Big Art Project.

I say it is going national now, but for those people who regularly travel up and down the M1, the cooling towers may be familiar. They stand on the opposite side of the M1 from Sheffield’s Meadowhall Shopping Centre, immediately next to the Tinsley Viaduct. Indeed it is the motorway that prevented their demolition many years ago when the old Blackburn Meadows Power Station closed down. Their proximity to the M1 makes their demolition quite precarious.

So over the years the debate has raged about whether they are an eyesore that has to go or whether they are landmark structures. Despite my love of industrial buildings, I would not normally look at cooling towers as beautiful. I suppose they’re a bit too commonplace, bland and uniform for that. But in my view, there’s something about Tinsley’s that make them important. From any high point near where I live you can see them in the distance on the other side of the city, and you know that that is more or less where Sheffield ends. They are a sort of full-stop to Sheffield, everything before them is a part of the city and beyond them the land gets flatter and flatter through Rotherham, Doncaster, the Humber Estuary and eventually the North Sea. So I suppose the reason I want to save them is not because they are beautiful or because they are unique, but because they are a clear landmark in the city. Some people have declared them as Sheffield’s equivalent to the Angel of the North, but I think that denegrates the beauty of that sculpture.

But the question then is what do you do with them? Some proposals have been to beautify them, but in a way that would take away their starkness and the way that they stand out so much. But leaving them as they are would just make them look like what they currently are - something that has yet to be demolished. I suppose I don’t know what should be done with them, but I do feel they should be kept.

CHANNEL 4: The Channel 4 The Big Art Project - Sheffield

GUARDIAN: Power station towers in line for cool new use

SHEFFIELD STAR: Opinion divided on cooling towers

Yesterday I walked the Five Weirs Walk from Sheffield city centre along the River Don to Meadowhall. I then returned along the Sheffield & Tinsley Canal back to the city centre.

The Five Weirs Walk was planned many years ago and has gradually been created over the last fifteen years. The aim was to allow people to walk the full length of the Lower Don Valley where the River Don passes through the old industrial East End of Sheffield. Although there are still a couple of stretches where access is still blocked by riverside factories it is now largely complete. Not only does it give you some sense of how industrial Sheffield still is, but it also gives you an idea of how derelict some areas still are and how much nature has now grown up along the river bank.

I came back along Sheffield Canal, which is now very green and feels far less industrial than the river. The canal passes many of the sports facilities that were built for the World Student Games in 1991.

I have uploaded some of my photos to my Sheffield album on Flikr to give a sense of what the area is now like.

Anders Hanson’s Sheffield album on Flikr