It was a late night in November we swept over the Pennines from Manchester towards Sheffield. With bad weather it`s never a good journey to do in a convertible sports car. We just wanted to be home but neither of us had a clue as to where we were. Suddenly we could see the Tinsley Cooling Towers looming at us down the M1 like two concrete sentinels welcoming us back from the wilderness.

With the demolition of the Cooling Towers on Sunday night after owner E.ON decided they were structurally unsound, this is an experience that will unfortunately not be repeated again.

For years the towers, a couple of grimly monumental concrete monoliths, had become an icon to the city and one of the most distinctive landmarks and a gateway to the tens of thousands of motorists who drove past them every day.
Councils love large iconic structures strategically positioned that help define the skyline of the city, and they were the sort of gateway that councils, including Sheffield, strive to have built.

Indeed, much of Sheffield`s urban planning for tall buildings is based on the idea that the towers should be at gateway locations welcoming people to the city and from this point of view, the Tinsley Cooling Towers were perfect in a similar way to how St Paul`s Place welcomes visitors heading to the city centre from the train station.

Unfortunately despite their iconic local importance, there was little that could be done by the council to stop the demolition of the Cooling Towers short of issuing a compulsory purchase order on the site which would then make them responsible for it and the upkeep of the structures they feared would be ruinous.
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