Redcar blast furnace demolition is end of an era and big step towards Teesside’s greener future

YESTERDAY morning saw the end of one of the region’s most familiar landmarks – and biggest traditional-industry polluters – as the Redcar blast furnace was flattened by explosive demolition.

The giant structure, as tall as London’s St Paul’s Cathedral at 365 feet, once produced around 3.5million tonnes of steel each year – but at the cost of also releasing anywhere between five and 10 million tonnes of fossil carbon into the atmosphere annually as a by-product.

Its demolition was the latest phase in the clearance of the former Redcar steelworks site, to make way for the giant new Teesworks site, a major component of the Tees Free Port which is being developed and which is expected to bring thousands of new jobs to the region.

Not least, the new complex will play a major role in servicing the region’s burgeoning offshore renewable energy industry in the North Sea.

Redcar’s former steelworks had dominated the Teesside skyline since the 1970s.

The blast furnace was built in 1979 and was the second-largest of its kind in Europe. It was once operated by British Steel and Corus, before being shut down in 2015 with the collapse of SSI UK.

Its demolition, carried out by specialist contractors Thompsons of Prudhoe using 175kgs of explosives after months of preparation, brought mixed emotions: regret at the loss of a major piece of Teesside’s industrial heritage, but also optimism for a cleaner, greener future.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said: “It’s a day of reflection for many, but I also want to reinforce the point that one of the reasons we’ve done this is to create jobs in the future, with Net Zero Teesside building an energy plant where we’re stood.

“As well as saying we built the world over the last 200 years and had that economy of the past, with these new technologies we’re building an economy on Teesside for the future.”

Redcar Conservative MP Jacob Young said: ” I always said today would be a day of mixed emotions. But it is precisely because the blast furnace stood for so long as a symbol of our historic economic strength that it should make way for a new era of progress.

“And it’s that progress that we need to concentrate on now. Thanks to the work of Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, the support of local councils and MPs, Teesworks is now the largest and most connected industrial zone in the UK, home to diverse, sustainable and low-carbon activity.

“The best way to honour everything that the blast furnace came to symbolise is to press ahead in creating a better local economy for tomorrow.”

Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough, lamented the loss of the furnace and its old industrial glory, but added: “We must now look to the future and seize all the opportunities to create new industries which will be critical in us becoming net zero.

“What is imperative is that workers have the requisite skills for these new industries in order to provide the people of Teesside with secure, well-paid employment.”