London Socialist Historians Group
Media Release 19th September
Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266
Historians say blowing up of Dorman Long Tower on Teesside is industrial vandalism
The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has said that the blowing up of the Dorman Long Tower on Teesside in the early hours of Sunday is an act of industrial vandalism.
The Dorman Long Tower was built to store coal for the Redcar/South Bank steel works in the mid-1950s and is held to be a good example of brutalist architecture.
Steel production ended at Redcar in 2015 but it had been a process of decline since the Thatcher Government provoked and won a strike of steel workers in 1980. The Thatcher years saw the widespread destruction of jobs and industry on Teesside.
The Dorman Long Tower was recently given Grade 11 listed status by Historic England. However in her first act as Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries agreed it could be blown up after lobbying by Tory Mayor for the area Ben Houchen.
The historians say that having destroyed industry and jobs in the 1980s it appears the Tories of the 2020s want to remove any evidence that they ever existed from the landscape. Teesside is not an industrial museum and new jobs and industry are needed. At the same time simply erasing all evidence of past industry is unacceptable.
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, The last Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden was insistent that monuments of British history such as statues of slave traders must be left exactly as they are. It seems Ms Dorries has a rather different view on whether historical artefacts and structures need to be preserved.
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