The Rise And Fall And Rise Of Battersea Power Station
A decade before its long-anticipated reopening, I weighed up whether the region's most celebrated/despised landmark/eyesore would find a life beyond electricity...
Comedian Lenny Henry once described Battersea Power Station as an 'upside down woolly mammoth'. Funny as this might be, 'white elephant' would have been closer to the mark.
Built in the late 1920s for a little over £2 million and commissioned in 1933, Battersea Power Station has dominated the South-West London skyline for the best part of a century. Since 1983, however, the station - made world famous by its depiction on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals LP - hasn't produced a single joule of electricity.
While the station's original function might have ceased, no end of people have tried to reinvigorate the structure over the past 30 years. Although there have been all manner of rumours that Chelsea FC were and remain interested in building a new stadium upon the site, the first bona fide effort to revive the building came in 1986.
Alton Towers Ltd were the brave people who took over the running of the station from the Central Electricity Generating Board. With it being a Grade II* listed building (Michael Heseltine MP was the man who slapped a preservation order on it), the theme park experts were unable to reshape the power station. However, since it covers such an enormous area, the execs believed they could house an entire entertainment complex within the structure.
To make such a venture economically viable, the theme park would require two million visitors a year. It was perhaps because of this figure that the project ground to a halt in 1989. A solution was suggested in the shape of a shopping mall-cum-office-and-apartment facility. But while this received planning permission, a lack of money meant that Battersea's most famous landmark went untouched until 1993.
Hong Kong-based Parkview was the next company to take a crack at rejuvenating the site. As with before, entertainment was the means by which the station was to be saved. Indeed, according to the Parkview literature, the proposed mall and multiplex cinema would not only be good for the building but also for the local area, with some 9,000 jobs being created. No sooner was everyone getting excited than the scheme foundered, the issue of money being further complicated by claims that the station's famed chimneys would have to be demolished.
Where South-East Asia failed, the Republic Of Ireland hoped to succeed. Real Estate Opportunities unveiled their redevelopment plan in 2006. Convinced that the site required better transport links, the company's proposals centred on a plan to extend the London Underground. Since such a move would be environmentally unfriendly to a quite astonishing degree, REO's other schemes included a bio-fuel operation and an Eden Project-esque eco-dome. All of which must have looked incredibly exciting and sexy on paper. Come November 2011, though, the money was gone and the plan had collapsed into administration.
As of March 2012, a new Don Quixote hasn't been found to take on this biggest of windmills. If anyone reading is interested, Battersea Power Station is now for sale on the open market. The asking price? £500 million.
Throughout the years it's been empty, the building hasn't gone completely unused. From providing the setting for episodes of Doctor Who, Ashes To Ashes and Sherlock (Mycroft's "massive power complex") to doubling as the magician's hideout in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus and the Ark Of The Arts in Children Of Men,
it's actually become something of a creative hub.
Would that someone could marry their grand designs with sound business sense, the icon of South London could enjoy a new lease of life similar to that of Tate Modern, or as it was formerly known Bankside Power Station.