6 Consequential problems on other CEGB stations

The Ferrybridge Report concluded that the basic cause of collapse was due to errors in specification and design rather than to faulty construction and pointed out that these faults may well have been introduced at other contemporary stations. Subsequent analysis has confirmed this and the Paper discusses the practical problems of introducing adequate factors of safety in these existing structures.

Structural collapses of the magnitude of the Ferrybridge disaster are fortunately sufficiently rare to induce an immediate reaction of stunned disbelief in both public and profession alike.

Specialists concerned with tower design, who were aware and had appreciated the significance of the rapid extrapolation in unit sizes of towers over the past 10 years illustrated in Fig. 1, initially preferred to question the particular standards of construction rather than the design. As the Committee of Inquiry proceeded with its work, however, this relatively comfortable, parochial explanation had to be abandoned and the CEGB reluctantly had to acknowledge the unpalatable likelihood that the primary faults lay in specification and design and to recognize that these faults were not unique to Ferrybridge.