Kepier power station

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 Wear, at Kepier, 0.75 mi 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 in the mid-Durham area to be close to the coal supplies. It 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…

The station's site plans and elevations were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. 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. 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 ft 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…