Steel structures to be demolished at Rugeley Power Station next week

The fourth controlled collapse demolition will take place at 10am on Thursday.

The collapse will bring down the 30m high Turbine Hall and 73m high Deaerator (DA) Bay.

An exclusion zone will be in place before, during and after the collapse and noise "may be heard" and road sweepers will be made available to clear any dust from the demolition, a spokesman for owner ENGIE said.

The exclusion zone is within the power station boundary fence and there will be no public access to the area or impact on the local road network.

The spokesman added: "Demolition of this section of the power station is considered to be low impact. Although the initiation and collapse may be heard off site, any noise will be over very quickly."

The other main structures, including the rest of the boiler house, chimney and cooling towers are scheduled for controlled collapse in 2020. The complete demolition of the site is expected in 2021.

The demolition of the site will make way for 2,300 homes, housing for the elderly, commercial buildings and a primary school, if the plans are accepted.

The outline planning application for the homes, up to 1.2 ha of mixed-use buildings, five ha of employment land, a primary school, open space and key infrastructure has been submitted.

Rugeley A power station opened in 1961 while Rugeley B power station, which provided enough electricity to power around half a million homes, followed nine years later.

There were plans to convert the power station to run on biomass fuel in 2012 but they were never carried out.

The station eventually closed in June 2016 when 120 jobs were lost.

If the outline plans are approved, a reserved matters application with the finer details will have to be given the green light at a later date.

The plans say that construction is estimated to begin next year and to carry on until 2040.