The History
Yeah I know you all know it but I’ve added it anyways.
Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station, which is now being redeveloped to bring new homes, offices, shops, restaurants, bars, open space and more to Wandsworth, south London. Now owned by a consortium of Malaysian investors, the iconic Grade II* listed building and the surrounding 42 acres are being brought back to life through an eight phase development project. The first phase, Circus West Village, is already complete and now open to the public to eat, drink, shop, exercise and live. Sitting on the south bank of the river by Chelsea Bridge, over 1000 people now live at Circus West Village, and 12 restaurants, bars and shops are open alongside Boom Cycle spinning studio and Paul Edmonds hair salon. Circus West Village is accessible by river bus, as the new Battersea Power Station pier is serviced by MBNA Thames Clippers.
The Power Station itself is the second phase of the project, and will be home to over 250 residential units, bars, restaurants, office space to be occupied by Apple and No.18 business members club, shops, entertainment space and more.
In 2012, administrators Ernst & Young entered into an exclusivity agreement with Malaysia's SP Setia and Sime Darby to develop the site. The £400 million sale was completed in September 2012, and the redevelopment was planned to implement the Rafael Vinoly design, which had gained planning consent from Wandsworth Council in 2011. In January 2013, the first residential apartments went on sale. Construction on Phase 1 was due to commence in 2013, completion was due in 2016/17. However it’s nowhere near completion. Apple will locate its new London headquarters at Battersea Power Station, becoming the largest office tenant with 1,400 staff on six floors in the central boiler house.
The Explore
It’s not right for me to travel to “that side of the river” Hailing from east London, that side of the river was never a place to visit. However as a kid I remember driving through Battersea as a short cut, Pre M25 remember, although until a few weeks back I had forgotten quite how big it is.
A colossal giant in the surrounding areas. It must have been even worse back when it wasn’t surrounded by high rise buildings.
An Icon of British Industry, I was always going to head here.
But in the November of 2015 as I was planning to visit, disaster struck
@Andy_k and a few others got right royally shafted here and it was deemed a no-go area.
If you ae unfamiliar as to what happened read Andy’s account of it here
Doesn’t sound like a bucket load of fun, so I decided it wasn’t worth the time, but you know how these things fester?
The a few weeks back a guy I follow on Instagram posted a pic of the inside of control room A, it sparked my interest again and both myself and Rapid Ascent started forming a plan.
We found these maps and decided to save them to our phones and use them to navigate our way around
Now the first visit was an epic fail, we rocked up on a Thursday night to find the site busy with cranes and workers milling about. This coupled with a dozen hi-viz’d security guards on the perimeter fence we bailed.
Pants
We returned the following Sunday hoping that the workers would be less and secca would be having a day off, we met up with a couple of others there but they were on their way home and left us too it.
Well the cranes all looked offline and secca seemed to be a little more absent than before so we bailed over the fence and went in.
We headed straight for the roof, or what’s left of it to get some decent night time crane shots and maybe climb the chimneys. That didn’t happen lol the climbing part that is.
We did however at a later date find ourselves right at the base of one of the stacks
We made our way inside after the roof and headed to the B side of the station, figuring this was furthest away from the new flats.
On the way there we passed the now legendary doors, sadly leading to bugger all these days and hard to get a decent pic of.
We headed into the B side turbine hall and found it petty packed with scaff and machinery, they are a little behind the completion date as you can see.
Using the above maps and what very little knowledge we had of the place we couldn’t find the Control Room for the B-side. Had it gone???
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