THE days of Didcot’s cooling towers are now truly numbered after power station bosses submitted a planning application to blast them to smithereens.

Demolition work on Didcot A Power Station is due to start this month.

But its six cooling towers may stay standing until June or July.

A planning application for the coal-fired power station’s cooling towers and buildings has been submitted to Vale of White Horse District Council.

It asks for permission to blow up and knock down the coal-fired power station some time after March 21.

RWE npower has appointed a demolition contractor, Birmingham-based Coleman and Company, and expects to announce soon a date for the demolition of three of the six 325ft southern towers nearest to Didcot.

 

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Spokesman Kelly Brown said: “We still don’t know an exact date because we have to organise everything with the police, traffic and the National Grid.

“We still need to speak to our stakeholders.”

She added that there will be a community involvement element in the demolition because of the important role the power station has played in Didcot.

But she said what exactly this will be has not yet been decided.

A test blast will be carried out more than four weeks before the real explosion takes place.

Before blow-down day itself a temporary exclusion zone within the site will be put up using fencing, panels, and pedestrian barriers.

It has not decided yet whether the three Northern cooling towers near Sutton Courtenay will blown up or dismantled yet, but the planning application has been submitted on the assumption that they will be blown up.

This would not be until late this year or early next year.

The whole demolition process could take until the end of 2016.

Didcot Town Council leader Margaret Davies said: “I think everybody has accepted that the cooling towers will come down this year.

“It won’t come as a surprise but I do think people want to know the date.

“People have become emotionally attached to the cooling towers so it would be good to know when they are finally going.”

A decision for permission to knock down the power station is due to be made by Vale of White Horse officers by March 20.