Watch These Giant Towers Crash Down in Seconds! - Cottam Power Station

The Cottam Power Station Demolition took place at 11am on the 14/08/2025. The Cottam power stations were a pair of power stations on over 620 acres (250 ha) of mainly arable land situated at the eastern edge of Nottinghamshire on the west bank of the River Trent at Cottam near Retford. The larger coal-fired station was decommissioned by EDF Energy in 2019 in line with the UK's goal to meet its zero-coal power generation by 2025.On 7 January 2019, EDF Energy confirmed that the coal-fired power station would close on 30 September 2019 due to "challenging market conditions." This meant the plant was in operation for over 50 years, despite being designed to operate only 30 years. At the time of the announced closure it was one of seven coal-fired power stations in operation, with the government on target to take coal power off the grid by 2025. Cottam power station desynchronised Unit 1 from the grid at 14:50 on 23 September 2019. The station closed on 30 September 2019. Once demolished, the site of the station is planned to become a 'garden community' of 1500 houses.Once decommissioning had concluded, EDF assigned the contract of demolition to the contractor Brown and Mason. The first explosive demolition occurred on 23 February 2023, with precipitators 1 and 2 being demolished followed by 3 and 4 on 13 April 2023.

On 17 August 2023, the demolition of the main building began with the DA bay, bunker bay, turbine hall and the coal conveyer all being demolished.

The boiler house was demolished on 22 February 2024 at 10 am.

The chimney stack was demolished on 20 March 2025 at 11 am.

All eight cooling towers were demolished on 14 August 2025 at 11 am, which was the final phase of the explosive demolition of Cottam power station. The full demolition of the site is expected by early 2026

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