So farewell then Ironbridge power station cooling towers

Travelling to Shropshire by road, if you leave the M54 at one junction you join a road that dips sharply so that the hills rise above you.

Just as you are trying to remember some quotations from Housman, you round a bend and see the cooling towers of Ironbridge power station.

Not any more you don't: they were demolished today.

As a 20th-century boy, I still have a regard for industry on the heroic scale. I also admire the way red pigment was added to the concrete so the towers matched the local soil

Lib Dems pick Martin Sawyer as candidate for Northampton North

The Liberal Democrats in Northampton North have chosen Martin Sawyer as their prospective parliamentary candidate.

Back in 2010 the Lib Dems were less than 2500 votes behind the winning Tory in a three-way marginal. In 2017 we gor only 2.5 per cent of the vote.

I like Sawyer's plan for the site of the town's old Greyfriars bus station, which has been lying unused since demolition in 2015.

"My vision for Greyfriars is an urban park with canopies for buses if needed. I've seen something similar in Budapest. The green space would help the town with its air quality problems."

And it gives me an excuse for republishing this video of the demolition.

Superb new video of the demolition of "the mouth of Hell"

On Sunday I posted a video of the demolition  of Greyfriars bus station, Northampton - known affectionately to locals as "the mouth of Hell".

I have now come across this superb footage, which was shot by the demolition contractors themselves.

The demolition of Greyfriars bus station, Northampton

A few weekends ago this blog was preoccupied with the demolition of the New Walk Centre in Leicester,

This weekend there is another demolition to enjoy. The Greyfriars bus station in Northampton is to be blown up.

As my photograph shows, it is a powerful Brutalist, or at least brutal, structure. If you came across it as an industrial building you would be mightily impressed.

But it was a public building. And the minimum you ask of a public building is that it does not kill people.

The underpasses and passages that the public was meant to use were so unpleasant that many preferred to cross the bus lanes above instead. And at least two passengers lost their lives doing so.

For that reason, I am not sorry to see the old place go.

If you want to watch the fun on Sunday, the best bet seems to be the Northampton Chronicle & Echo live web cam.

Demolition of the New Walk Centre, Leicester

In December 2011 Sir Peter Soulsby told BBC Radio Leicester that the New Walk Centre, which housed the City Council's offices, was to be demolished.

In that post I quoted a demolition expert as saying that the roads surrounding the offices could be partially shut for up to five months while the two blocks are demolished.

I passed the New Walk Centre today. Council staff have long since been decanted to different buildings across the city and demolition work has begun, but so far, though the site is boarded off, you can still use all the streets that surround it.

Council cabinet approves demolition of Northampton Greyfriars bus station

Earlier this week Northampton Borough Council's cabinet voted to approve the demolition of the town's Greyfriars bus station.

If you watch this video, which comes from Channel 4's 2005 programme Demolition, you will see why.

So farewell then Leicester's New Walk Centre

Earlier this week Sir Peter Soulsby told BBC Radio Leicester that the New Walk Centre, which houses the City Council's offices, is to be demolished.

Today's Leicester Mercury quotes a demolition expert as saying that the roads surrounding the New Walk Centre could be partially shut for up to five months while the two towers are demolished.

The New Walk Centre was a speculative office development of the early 1970s - I have seen footage of the National Front marching through the city in those days, and in the background you can see the hoardings around what was then a construction site.

Is it unfair to suggest that the developers must have seen the council coming? Or at least, should we be shocked that such a building becomes unsafe in less than 40 years?

The good news is that Leicester's Town Hall, built a whole century before the New Walk Centre, is still doing fine.