Kepier power station
Encyclopedia
Kepier power station refers to a cancelled coal-fired power station
on the River Wear
at Kepier
, 0.75 miles (1.2 km) north east of Durham
, County Durham
, North East England
. Planned by the North Eastern Electric Supply Company (NESCo) in 1944, it was never realised as the scheme faced stiff opposition from those who claimed it would obstruct views of the historic Durham Cathedral
from the East Coast Main Line
. A number of people supported the scheme, as it would help meet the increasing demand for electricity, and provide much needed jobs in in the post-depression, post-war economy of Britain. Had it been given the go ahead, the station, which had been designed by architect Giles Gilbert Scott
, would have been operational by the late 1940s and generated 150 megawatts of electricity. However, following a public inquiry
, the plans were not given the go ahead, and instead NESCo installed new capacity at their existing power stations.
, at Kepier
, 0.75 miles (1.2 km) north east of the city of Durham
, and in early 1944 publicly announced their plans to build a large coal-fired power station
on the site. The station was part of a post-war
plan by NESCo, and the scheme had a projected cost of £3,500,000. The site was chosen because it needed to be in the mid-Durham area to be close to the coal supplies in the county. Specifically, the station also needed to be a short distance from the River Wear, downstream of Durham, and on solid foundations. Mine workings in County Durham
restricted the number of possible sites which could meet the requirement for solid foundations. The site also required good road and rail access.
The estimated build time for the station was around four years, and once completed the station was expected to employ around 300 people. In June 1944, NESCo formally submitted their plans for consent of construction.
. He had previously designed Battersea Power Station
in London, and so the designs of the Kepier station were considered to have been of a very high architectural quality. If the station were to have been built, NESCo claimed that the design of the station would be considered "a credit to the whole district". The main station building was to be 135 feet (41.1 m) in height.
The station would have burned between 1,500 and 2,000 tonnes of low-grade coal
per week, to produce 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The coal was to be taken from mines in County Durham, and transported to the station by the Durham goods branch of the Leamside Line railway, which terminated at nearby Gilesgate
. New sidings would have been required to reach the site from the railway line, which would have required cutting into the hillside above Kepier. Upon arriving at the station, coal would have been discharged from the wagons 135 feet (41.1 m) above the station and transported via a conveyor belt
over six arches down to the station itself.
The coal burnt would have had an estimated ash content of between 14% and 22%, and so at a cost of £160,000, the company were to install electrostatic precipitator
s, to remove 97% of the dust from the smoke and waste gases from combustion, before leaving the two 350 feet (106.7 m) high chimneys
. The view at the time was that the remaining dust that would leave the chimney's would not have caused "any appreciable pollution", and the waste gases, consisting of carbon dioxide
, were thought not to "cause any injury or harm to the inhabitants of the city, to buildings or to vegetation."
Between 350 and 450 tonnes of bottom ash
clinker
would be produced by the station per week. NESCo intended to sell this on to local construction companies as a construction material and believed there was a ready market for this. Fly ash
from the precipitators would also have built up, and NESCo claimed they would have spread this on land to the west of the station, and mixed it with soil to produce a 14 feet (4.3 m) high spoil tip.
The station would have featured six 170 feet (51.8 m) high cooling tower
s. It was said that there would be provision to prevent excessive amounts of steam leaving the cooling towers, with no haze coming from the towers on 95% of days of the year.
When the plans were first announced the county surveyor
raised no objections, and it was not until October 1943 and onwards that the Ministry of Town and Country Planning began to increasingly warn of the opposition that was bound to arise against the scheme.
The plans were strongly opposed by Thomas Wilfred Sharp
, an urban planner from Durham, who thought that the station would intrude on the city's skyline
. They were also opposed by the (at the time recently formed) City of Durham Trust. At the time the station had been given the go ahead by Durham City Council and the planning authority, but the Trust believed the station's tall chimneys and cooling towers would dwarf the nearby Durham Cathedral
.
NESCo argued that they thought the power station would enhance the city's attractions, with people coming to see the power station itself. At the least, they tried to assure the public that if built, the station would take as little away from the city as possible. An official statement from the company stated:
NESCo also argued that they had chosen the site to protect the city's amenities, in that it was outside the city boundary, partially surrounded by higher ground, and in the lee of prevailing winds. They also said that much could be done architecturally to fit the station into its surroundings.
Local trade union
s, Durham County Council, and even the Farmers' Union were in support of the scheme, along with a number of private persons, the general reason being that it would bring a new form of employment to the city and surrounding areas. Opponents to the station however claimed that the new jobs at the power station would go to specialist technicians brought into the region, and that the positioning of the station near Durham would not be beneficial to the city's electricity supply or make the cost of electricity any cheaper for those living near the station. Critics also claimed that wherever in the region a new power station were to be built, County Durham coal would be used in it, and that despite NESCo's claims, there may be more suitable sites elsewhere. The critics claimed that Durham's functioning as a cultural, educational, administrative and tourist centre, would be ultimately destroyed by heavy industrialisation.
At a meeting of Durham County Council on 26 July 1944, J.W. Foster, chairman of the Finance Committee of the council, spoke in favour of the proposals, claiming they would fulfill the Government's White Paper
on Employment Policy, and its policy on the rehabilitation of depressed areas. At the outbreak of war, the north of the country had still not fully recovered from the Great Depression
of the 1930s, and Foster believed the employment the station's construction and maintenance provided would help prevent a return to those conditions. It was also seen that the station would generally improve the supply of electricity for industry. He pointed out that the criticism of the scheme was based entirely on assumption that the station would "destroy the Medieval charm of the city", without taking into account the thoughts of the experts who designed the station. He also pointed out that the critics made their comments without any suggestion of an alternative, and that their campaign against the scheme had attracted publicity through a BBC
broadcast.
Foster also claimed that if any other feasible site could be found, then it should be used to avoid any violation of the view. However, he warned that the interest of the county's economy should be put in front of the concerns of "those ill-informed critics, who view Durham from the railway ... passing from one more fortunate district to another." Durham MP Charles Grey
later referred to the development as "vital to the well being of the County of Durham".
British architect Frederick Gibberd
published a diagrammatic comparison of Durham Cathedral alongside a power station typical of the design of the time, like the one planned at Kepier. This made clear that, although the Cathedral was one of the largest in the country, it still would looked small next to the projected power station. It was argued that as long as the two structures were viewed simultaneously, the visual juxtaposition would be detrimental to the Cathedral. Somewhat ironically, Gibberd's Didcot Power Station
would later be voted the third worst eyesore in Britain in 2003.
Although geographically located 1 miles (1.6 km) north east and 100 feet (30.5 m) lower, it was thought that Kepier power station would dominate any view into which it entered and that it would enter into most of the views in the city. A Northern Echo reader summarised these ideas in 1944:
should be opened. A public inquiry into the plans was opened in December 1944, with the hearing lasting for three days. The Ministry of Town and Country Planning
appointed Hurcomb as the chairman of the inquiry. The Electricity Commissioners
appointed George Pepler and C.G. Morley New. The key opponents of the scheme were the Durham City Preservation Society, chaired by Cyril Alington
.
NESCo were represented by Craig Henderson and Sydney Turner. The NESCo representatives argued that although the company already supplied around 85% of the North East region, a great deal more generating capacity would need to be built to meet the demand for years to come, and that the mid-Durham area was the best place to erect a new station. Henderson claimed the only real opposition to the scheme was that it would interfere with the amenities of Durham. John Hacking, chief engineer of the Central Electricity Board
, backed NESCo because if the scheme were declined, and consent and new arrangements had to be made, they would have no new plant in operation until after 1948.
A 11.8 kilograms (26 lb) Plasticine
model of the station, city and surroundings was used in the inquiry. It was accompanied by a certificate of essentiality, issued by the Electricity Commissioners. Photographs of the city were also shown with the power station superimposed.
During the hearing, Hurcomb pointed out a letter published in The Times
in July 1944, in which the Bishop and Dean of Durham, and Warden of the Durham Colleges, had given the misleading impression that the proposed station would ruin views from the railway line, an idea compounded by the publication a few days later of a photograph taken from the proposed site. He acknowledged that a number of views from parts of the river would be ruined, and that the station would be visible from the Cathedral and church, Hurcomb emphasised that the majority of the beautiful views around the city would remain. Pepler also found that from the railway station, the power station and the Cathedral could not be viewed simultaneously. The members of the inquiry initially concluded that the station should be given the go-ahead, based on the grounds that a more suitable site could not be decided upon.
The Durham Preservation Society, however, argued that with so many of Europe's finest monuments being destroyed in the Second World War, Durham and its Cathedral was a gem which had survived both the war and the "industrial despoliation which had laid waste so much of the rest of the County". Pepler supported the view that Durham was more suited as an administrative, shopping, and tourist centre, than it was for large-scale industrial development.
Legal and political difficulties caused a long delay in reaching a decision. An important issue was whether or not the inquiry was subject to the new Town and Country Planning Act of 1944. NESCo from the beginning challenged the right of the Minister of Town and Planning, W. S. Morrison, to convene an inquiry at all. The initial legal advice to the Government was that it was not subject, and the inquiry was convened with terms of reference that they were to consider whether a proposed new or extended station could supply sufficient electricity to meet the needs of consumers at no greater cost than any alternative source of supply. In Hurcomb's view the inquiry could not refuse consent if these conditions were met. A later decision by the Treasury Solicitor that the inquiry was, in fact, subject to the Act had the effect of paralysing decision making.
If Hurcomb persisted in adhering to his terms of reference and approved the power station, but Durham Rural District Council then withheld planning consent on the grounds of the objections, NESCo would be entitled to compensation for their losses due to the delay and building on a new site. The District Council would be liable for this but it was out of the question that they would be able to afford the large amount involved and the Government wished to avoid stepping in to pay themselves. If the inquiry could be persuaded to find against NESCo then no compensation would be payable and Hurcomb came under pressure from Ministers to do just that. Hurcomb argued that this would be denying compensation to those entitled to it and by April 1945 the decision on the station was still being delayed. The chairman of NESCo at the time voiced his anger in The Times, and Frank Tribe, secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, wrote to Hurcomb asking if anything could be done to bring the inquiry to a decision.
Eventually, Hurcomb put forward at a ministerial meeting a solution whereby the members of the inquiry would inform NESCo that on purely technical grounds they would have approved the scheme, but due to the opposition of Morrison, they had decided not to proceed to a decision. Although NESCo were initially hostile, in June 1945 they agreed to drop the scheme on condition that they received a letter from Morrison agreeing that they had satisfied the commissioners on technical grounds, thus entitling them to compenstation. The Government thought the site was open to well founded objections, and even if the scheme had proceeded past the inquiry stage, they would have refused consent anyway.
payment of £6,650 from the Ministry of Town and Country Planning for the expenditure incurred to that point. The site itself was inherited by the nationalised British Electricity Authority
in 1948 and they eventually sold it. On 9 October 1945, Minister of Town and Country Planning Lewis Silkin
made clear in the House of Commons that NESCo had began extending their existing power stations by installing additional generating plant at sites other than Kepier, sufficing the demand for electricity, and meaning no station was needed at Kepier.
Fossil fuel power plant
A fossil-fuel power station is a power station that burns fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or petroleum to produce electricity. Central station fossil-fuel power plants are designed on a large scale for continuous operation...
on the River Wear
River Wear
The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...
at Kepier
Kepier
Kepier, in the city of Durham, England, is the site of the medieval . It is situated on the River Wear, close to Gilesgate, Durham. It lies in the parish of Belmont.Kepier is notable as the location of the medieval Hospital of St Giles at Kepier....
, 0.75 miles (1.2 km) north east of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
, North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
. Planned by the North Eastern Electric Supply Company (NESCo) in 1944, it was never realised as the scheme faced stiff opposition from those who claimed it would obstruct views of the historic Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. The Bishopric dates from 995, with the present cathedral being founded in AD 1093...
from the East Coast Main Line
East Coast Main Line
The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...
. A number of people supported the scheme, as it would help meet the increasing demand for electricity, and provide much needed jobs in in the post-depression, post-war economy of Britain. Had it been given the go ahead, the station, which had been designed by architect Giles Gilbert Scott
Giles Gilbert Scott
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on such buildings as Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea Power Station and designing the iconic red telephone box....
, would have been operational by the late 1940s and generated 150 megawatts of electricity. However, following a public inquiry
Public inquiry
A Tribunal of Inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body in Common Law countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland or Canada. Such a public inquiry differs from a Royal Commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more...
, the plans were not given the go ahead, and instead NESCo installed new capacity at their existing power stations.
Background
After several years of preliminary planning, surveying sites and drawing up plans, the North Eastern Electric Supply Company (NESCo) bought the site of a large rifle range, over both sides of the River WearRiver Wear
The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...
, at Kepier
Kepier
Kepier, in the city of Durham, England, is the site of the medieval . It is situated on the River Wear, close to Gilesgate, Durham. It lies in the parish of Belmont.Kepier is notable as the location of the medieval Hospital of St Giles at Kepier....
, 0.75 miles (1.2 km) north east of the city of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
, and in early 1944 publicly announced their plans to build a large coal-fired power station
Fossil fuel power plant
A fossil-fuel power station is a power station that burns fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or petroleum to produce electricity. Central station fossil-fuel power plants are designed on a large scale for continuous operation...
on the site. The station was part of a post-war
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
plan by NESCo, and the scheme had a projected cost of £3,500,000. The site was chosen because it needed to be in the mid-Durham area to be close to the coal supplies in the county. Specifically, the station also needed to be a short distance from the River Wear, downstream of Durham, and on solid foundations. Mine workings in County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
restricted the number of possible sites which could meet the requirement for solid foundations. The site also required good road and rail access.
The estimated build time for the station was around four years, and once completed the station was expected to employ around 300 people. In June 1944, NESCo formally submitted their plans for consent of construction.
Design
The station's site plans and elevations were designed by Giles Gilbert ScottGiles Gilbert Scott
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on such buildings as Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea Power Station and designing the iconic red telephone box....
. He had previously designed Battersea Power Station
Battersea Power Station
Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Battersea, South London. The station comprises two individual power stations, built in two stages in the form of a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built first in the...
in London, and so the designs of the Kepier station were considered to have been of a very high architectural quality. If the station were to have been built, NESCo claimed that the design of the station would be considered "a credit to the whole district". The main station building was to be 135 feet (41.1 m) in height.
The station would have burned between 1,500 and 2,000 tonnes of low-grade coal
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, or Rosebud coal by Northern Pacific Railroad,is a soft brown fuel with characteristics that put it somewhere between coal and peat...
per week, to produce 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The coal was to be taken from mines in County Durham, and transported to the station by the Durham goods branch of the Leamside Line railway, which terminated at nearby Gilesgate
Gilesgate
Gilesgate is a place in County Durham, England. It is situated east of the centre of Durham.Gilesgate was originally the main street in a settlement associated with the Hospital of St Giles which was sited by the existing St Giles Church...
. New sidings would have been required to reach the site from the railway line, which would have required cutting into the hillside above Kepier. Upon arriving at the station, coal would have been discharged from the wagons 135 feet (41.1 m) above the station and transported via a conveyor belt
Conveyor belt
A conveyor belt consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material - the conveyor belt - that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley...
over six arches down to the station itself.
The coal burnt would have had an estimated ash content of between 14% and 22%, and so at a cost of £160,000, the company were to install electrostatic precipitator
Electrostatic precipitator
An electrostatic precipitator , or electrostatic air cleaner is a particulate collection device that removes particles from a flowing gas using the force of an induced electrostatic charge...
s, to remove 97% of the dust from the smoke and waste gases from combustion, before leaving the two 350 feet (106.7 m) high chimneys
Flue gas stack
A flue-gas stack is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which combustion product gases called flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oil, natural gas, wood or any other fuel is combusted in an industrial furnace, a power...
. The view at the time was that the remaining dust that would leave the chimney's would not have caused "any appreciable pollution", and the waste gases, consisting of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
, were thought not to "cause any injury or harm to the inhabitants of the city, to buildings or to vegetation."
Between 350 and 450 tonnes of bottom ash
Bottom ash
Bottom ash refers to part of the non-combustible residues of combustion. In an industrial context, it usually refers to coal combustion and comprises traces of combustibles embedded in forming clinkers and sticking to hot side walls of a coal-burning furnace during its operation. The portion of...
clinker
Clinker (waste)
Clinker is a general name given to waste from industrial processes — particularly those that involve smelting metals, burning fossil fuels and using a blacksmith's forge which will usually result in a large buildup of clinker around the tuyère...
would be produced by the station per week. NESCo intended to sell this on to local construction companies as a construction material and believed there was a ready market for this. Fly ash
Fly ash
Fly ash is one of the residues generated in combustion, and comprises the fine particles that rise with the flue gases. Ash which does not rise is termed bottom ash. In an industrial context, fly ash usually refers to ash produced during combustion of coal...
from the precipitators would also have built up, and NESCo claimed they would have spread this on land to the west of the station, and mixed it with soil to produce a 14 feet (4.3 m) high spoil tip.
The station would have featured six 170 feet (51.8 m) high cooling tower
Cooling tower
Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer process waste heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and cool the working fluid to near the wet-bulb air temperature or in the case of closed circuit dry cooling towers rely...
s. It was said that there would be provision to prevent excessive amounts of steam leaving the cooling towers, with no haze coming from the towers on 95% of days of the year.
Criticism and support
County surveyor
1. A county surveyor is a public official in many counties of the USA. At the bottom of this page are working "External Links" as at 4 November 2011 to websites of a selection of such County Surveyor's departments. Most of these officials are elected on the partisan ballot to four-year terms...
raised no objections, and it was not until October 1943 and onwards that the Ministry of Town and Country Planning began to increasingly warn of the opposition that was bound to arise against the scheme.
The plans were strongly opposed by Thomas Wilfred Sharp
Thomas Wilfred Sharp
Thomas Wilfred Sharp was an English urban planner and writer. He was born in Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England. He attended the local grammar school and then spent four years working for the borough surveyor...
, an urban planner from Durham, who thought that the station would intrude on the city's skyline
Skyline
A skyline is the overall or partial view of a city's tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city's overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as...
. They were also opposed by the (at the time recently formed) City of Durham Trust. At the time the station had been given the go ahead by Durham City Council and the planning authority, but the Trust believed the station's tall chimneys and cooling towers would dwarf the nearby Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. The Bishopric dates from 995, with the present cathedral being founded in AD 1093...
.
NESCo argued that they thought the power station would enhance the city's attractions, with people coming to see the power station itself. At the least, they tried to assure the public that if built, the station would take as little away from the city as possible. An official statement from the company stated:
"Consultants of every kind will be employed in connection with the construction, and the City Corporation can rest assured that every precaution will be taken both in the design and the working of the station to cause as little harm as possible to the amenities of the City."
NESCo also argued that they had chosen the site to protect the city's amenities, in that it was outside the city boundary, partially surrounded by higher ground, and in the lee of prevailing winds. They also said that much could be done architecturally to fit the station into its surroundings.
Local trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, Durham County Council, and even the Farmers' Union were in support of the scheme, along with a number of private persons, the general reason being that it would bring a new form of employment to the city and surrounding areas. Opponents to the station however claimed that the new jobs at the power station would go to specialist technicians brought into the region, and that the positioning of the station near Durham would not be beneficial to the city's electricity supply or make the cost of electricity any cheaper for those living near the station. Critics also claimed that wherever in the region a new power station were to be built, County Durham coal would be used in it, and that despite NESCo's claims, there may be more suitable sites elsewhere. The critics claimed that Durham's functioning as a cultural, educational, administrative and tourist centre, would be ultimately destroyed by heavy industrialisation.
At a meeting of Durham County Council on 26 July 1944, J.W. Foster, chairman of the Finance Committee of the council, spoke in favour of the proposals, claiming they would fulfill the Government's White Paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
on Employment Policy, and its policy on the rehabilitation of depressed areas. At the outbreak of war, the north of the country had still not fully recovered from the Great Depression
Great Depression in the United Kingdom
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression...
of the 1930s, and Foster believed the employment the station's construction and maintenance provided would help prevent a return to those conditions. It was also seen that the station would generally improve the supply of electricity for industry. He pointed out that the criticism of the scheme was based entirely on assumption that the station would "destroy the Medieval charm of the city", without taking into account the thoughts of the experts who designed the station. He also pointed out that the critics made their comments without any suggestion of an alternative, and that their campaign against the scheme had attracted publicity through a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
broadcast.
Foster also claimed that if any other feasible site could be found, then it should be used to avoid any violation of the view. However, he warned that the interest of the county's economy should be put in front of the concerns of "those ill-informed critics, who view Durham from the railway ... passing from one more fortunate district to another." Durham MP Charles Grey
Charles Grey (politician)
Charles Frederick Grey CBE was a British miner and politician; he was also an independent Methodist Minister.Grey had an elementary school education and went to work in the Durham coalfield when he left school at 14...
later referred to the development as "vital to the well being of the County of Durham".
British architect Frederick Gibberd
Frederick Gibberd
Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd was an English architect and landscape designer.Gibberd was born in Coventry, the eldest of the five children of a local tailor, and was educated at the city's King Henry VIII School...
published a diagrammatic comparison of Durham Cathedral alongside a power station typical of the design of the time, like the one planned at Kepier. This made clear that, although the Cathedral was one of the largest in the country, it still would looked small next to the projected power station. It was argued that as long as the two structures were viewed simultaneously, the visual juxtaposition would be detrimental to the Cathedral. Somewhat ironically, Gibberd's Didcot Power Station
Didcot Power Station
Didcot Power Station refers to a combined coal and oil power plant and a natural-gas power plant that supply the National Grid. They are situated immediately adjoining one another in the civil parish of Sutton Courtenay, next to the town of Didcot in Oxfordshire , in the UK...
would later be voted the third worst eyesore in Britain in 2003.
Although geographically located 1 miles (1.6 km) north east and 100 feet (30.5 m) lower, it was thought that Kepier power station would dominate any view into which it entered and that it would enter into most of the views in the city. A Northern Echo reader summarised these ideas in 1944:
"As the traveller by train approaches Kepier and Durham from the North there would meet his eye in the foreground this vast power station. Kepier, a local beauty spot, and the picturesque remains of Kepier HospitalKepier HospitalKepier Hospital was a medieval hospital at Kepier, Durham, England.-Founding at Gilesgate:...
, a building of much historic interest, would be blotted out, the Castle and Cathedral beyond would be dwarfed by an incongruous mass of concrete buildings ill sorting with the landscape."
Inquiry
After the suggestion by the head of the Ministry of War Transport Cyril Hurcomb to conduct a joint local hearing chaired by an outsider was turned down by the Government due to much greater means being needed, the Government agreed that a public inquiryPublic inquiry
A Tribunal of Inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body in Common Law countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland or Canada. Such a public inquiry differs from a Royal Commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more...
should be opened. A public inquiry into the plans was opened in December 1944, with the hearing lasting for three days. The Ministry of Town and Country Planning
Ministry of Housing and Local Government
The Ministry of Housing and Local Government was a United Kingdom government department formed after the Second World War, covering the areas of housing and local government....
appointed Hurcomb as the chairman of the inquiry. The Electricity Commissioners
Electricity Commissioners
The Electricity Commissioners were a department of the United Kingdom government's Ministry of Transport, and attempted to regulate the electricity supply industry in its early days....
appointed George Pepler and C.G. Morley New. The key opponents of the scheme were the Durham City Preservation Society, chaired by Cyril Alington
Cyril Alington
Cyril Argentine Alington was an English educationalist, scholar, cleric, and prolific author. He was the headmaster of both Shrewsbury School and Eton College. He also served as chaplain to King George V and as Dean of Durham....
.
NESCo were represented by Craig Henderson and Sydney Turner. The NESCo representatives argued that although the company already supplied around 85% of the North East region, a great deal more generating capacity would need to be built to meet the demand for years to come, and that the mid-Durham area was the best place to erect a new station. Henderson claimed the only real opposition to the scheme was that it would interfere with the amenities of Durham. John Hacking, chief engineer of the Central Electricity Board
Central Electricity Board
The United Kingdom Central Electricity Board was set up under The Electricity Act 1926 to standardise the nation's electricity supply. At that time, the industry consisted of more than 600 electricity supply companies and local authority undertakings, and different areas operated at different...
, backed NESCo because if the scheme were declined, and consent and new arrangements had to be made, they would have no new plant in operation until after 1948.
A 11.8 kilograms (26 lb) Plasticine
Plasticine
Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc...
model of the station, city and surroundings was used in the inquiry. It was accompanied by a certificate of essentiality, issued by the Electricity Commissioners. Photographs of the city were also shown with the power station superimposed.
During the hearing, Hurcomb pointed out a letter published in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in July 1944, in which the Bishop and Dean of Durham, and Warden of the Durham Colleges, had given the misleading impression that the proposed station would ruin views from the railway line, an idea compounded by the publication a few days later of a photograph taken from the proposed site. He acknowledged that a number of views from parts of the river would be ruined, and that the station would be visible from the Cathedral and church, Hurcomb emphasised that the majority of the beautiful views around the city would remain. Pepler also found that from the railway station, the power station and the Cathedral could not be viewed simultaneously. The members of the inquiry initially concluded that the station should be given the go-ahead, based on the grounds that a more suitable site could not be decided upon.
The Durham Preservation Society, however, argued that with so many of Europe's finest monuments being destroyed in the Second World War, Durham and its Cathedral was a gem which had survived both the war and the "industrial despoliation which had laid waste so much of the rest of the County". Pepler supported the view that Durham was more suited as an administrative, shopping, and tourist centre, than it was for large-scale industrial development.
Legal and political difficulties caused a long delay in reaching a decision. An important issue was whether or not the inquiry was subject to the new Town and Country Planning Act of 1944. NESCo from the beginning challenged the right of the Minister of Town and Planning, W. S. Morrison, to convene an inquiry at all. The initial legal advice to the Government was that it was not subject, and the inquiry was convened with terms of reference that they were to consider whether a proposed new or extended station could supply sufficient electricity to meet the needs of consumers at no greater cost than any alternative source of supply. In Hurcomb's view the inquiry could not refuse consent if these conditions were met. A later decision by the Treasury Solicitor that the inquiry was, in fact, subject to the Act had the effect of paralysing decision making.
If Hurcomb persisted in adhering to his terms of reference and approved the power station, but Durham Rural District Council then withheld planning consent on the grounds of the objections, NESCo would be entitled to compensation for their losses due to the delay and building on a new site. The District Council would be liable for this but it was out of the question that they would be able to afford the large amount involved and the Government wished to avoid stepping in to pay themselves. If the inquiry could be persuaded to find against NESCo then no compensation would be payable and Hurcomb came under pressure from Ministers to do just that. Hurcomb argued that this would be denying compensation to those entitled to it and by April 1945 the decision on the station was still being delayed. The chairman of NESCo at the time voiced his anger in The Times, and Frank Tribe, secretary of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, wrote to Hurcomb asking if anything could be done to bring the inquiry to a decision.
Eventually, Hurcomb put forward at a ministerial meeting a solution whereby the members of the inquiry would inform NESCo that on purely technical grounds they would have approved the scheme, but due to the opposition of Morrison, they had decided not to proceed to a decision. Although NESCo were initially hostile, in June 1945 they agreed to drop the scheme on condition that they received a letter from Morrison agreeing that they had satisfied the commissioners on technical grounds, thus entitling them to compenstation. The Government thought the site was open to well founded objections, and even if the scheme had proceeded past the inquiry stage, they would have refused consent anyway.
Outcome
Ultimately, the decision of the inquiry went against NESCo and those in support of the station, and the company dropped their plans. NESCo received an ex gratiaEx gratia
Ex gratia is Latin for "by favour", and is most often used in a legal context. When something has been done ex gratia, it has been done voluntarily, out of kindness or grace...
payment of £6,650 from the Ministry of Town and Country Planning for the expenditure incurred to that point. The site itself was inherited by the nationalised British Electricity Authority
British Electricity Authority
The British Electricity Authority was established in 1948 with the nationalisation of the Great Britain's electricity supply industry. It was created by means of the Electricity Act 1947...
in 1948 and they eventually sold it. On 9 October 1945, Minister of Town and Country Planning Lewis Silkin
Lewis Silkin, 1st Baron Silkin
Lewis Silkin, 1st Baron Silkin CH , was a British Labour Party politician.Silkin worked as a solicitor, before becoming a member of the London County Council in 1925. He chaired the LCC Town Planning and the Housing and Public Health Committees and was a member of the Central Housing Advisory...
made clear in the House of Commons that NESCo had began extending their existing power stations by installing additional generating plant at sites other than Kepier, sufficing the demand for electricity, and meaning no station was needed at Kepier.