THIS week I look back at electrical generation in Thurrock, as soon there will be no physical evidence of the three major power stations of Thurrock.

The Gazette revealed on November 12, 1949, a new Tilbury power station had been proposed, with work starting in the following year.

This was part of the British Electrical Authority’s £400 million expansion at 38 sites across the country.

Tilbury A station came on line in 1956 and consisted of six generating units, producing electricity with fossil fuel and co-firing oil for the National Grid. It closed in 1981 and demolition of the station was completed by 1999.

Meanwhile, West Thurrock power station was starting to be built in 1957 and opened in 1962, being decommissioned after 31 years’work in 1993 and it is now demolished.

Tilbury B had been proposed by the Central Electrical Generating Board in 1961 and opened in 1968. It was coal-fired and ships brought coal to the jetties for it to be discharged and stored to the north of the station.

Under privatisation in 1990, it was assigned to National Power, but later run by RWE npower. The company called LYTAG produced lightweight cements by mixing clinker from the power station and operated for a number of years on the site.

The jetty was enlarged in 2004 to accommodate ships carrying up to 65,000 tons of coal.

InMay 2011, RWE began converting the B station to burn biomass by burning wood pellets imported from a plant in Georgia, USA, and other sources in Europe. This conversion would have made it the biggest biomass generating site in the world.

But, in July 2013, RWE npower announced it was halting the conversion process due to difficulty in converting and financing the plant. The large jetties on the Thames allowed for coalto be broughtin, although in its final life the B station was operating on biomass fuel. Now the site has been decommissioned and demolition is expected to finish at the end of 2018.

I hope some of those men and women who worked in this industry write some memories of their time in construction and generation of electricity before it is all wiped of the face of Thurrock.

As one industrial landscape goes, another seems poised to arrive in our borough. I wonder what Queen Elizabeth I might have said on hearing a road is being built across her famous “speech” site!

DOWN MEMORY LANE is written by local historian JONATHAN CATTON, in partnership with Thurrock Museum. Memories, photographs or objects relating to Thurrock’s past will be gratefully received for the museum collections. Contact by letter at Thurrock Museum, Thameside Complex, Orsett Road, Grays, RM17 5DX, make a personal visit, or email Thurrock.Museum@thurrock.gov.uk