Nottingham Contemporary

This was a workshop hosted by Architectural Designer William Harvey and artist Ryan Boultbee, two creatives obsessed with the built environment.

We gathered as a small group to share our thoughts on the future of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, the one with the big cooling towers from all over Nottingham, an unofficial landmark that welcomes you to the city. It is likely to be the last coal-fired power station in the UK.

To start, we introduced ourselves and our curiosities around the power station. The responses we shared were varied and diverse, from an interest in engineering, to simply being intrigued by the possibility of becoming CHANGEMAKERS. Through a series of carefully researched images, they introduced Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station: it’s scale; a brief timeline, 1968-2024; it’s sculptural form as a creative muse; a site for protest and civil disobedience; and, an archetype of climate change.

Using an architectural scale drawing, depicting the empty shell of a cooling tower, they encouraged everyone, individually and COLLECTIVELY, to share their ideas about what a future re-use of this part of the infrastructure could be.

We saw a range of fabulous ideas, including vertical farms, community housing, a giant game of snakes and ladders, and a colossal pop-up cinema. We stuck all the drawings onto the walls of Nottingham Contemporary, assembling a micro exhibition to collectively soak up the creative possibilities.

What do YOU think the future of Ratcliffe-on-soar power station should be? Surely, together, we can navigate to something exciting that benefits Nottingham, and evidences our climate change heritage. The site faces - demolition, redevelopment, an incinerator being built and possibly even a gigafactory!? Is this what local people want?