Negotiating Post-Carbon Futures: Divergent Imaginaries in the Redevelopment of Ratcliffe-on Soar Power Station

Sammanfattning

The UK achieved the ambitious goal of becoming the first G7 country to phase out coal-firedelectricity, with its last power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar closing in 2024. Ensuring thisgeneration of transitioning communities does not follow in the footsteps of ‘left behind’ UKex-mining villages for example, is imperative. This study investigates and compares theimaginaries of place leaders and locals in a region experiencing a post-carbon transition, froma critical realist perspective. The paper addresses the current gap in imaginaries literature tothoroughly engage with subjective theories such as sense of place and value judgments, as wellas understanding the implications of imaginaries on economic processes. A conceptualframework is built to extend Benners (2025) conceptualisation of imaginaries, by delineatingfour key dimensions: spatial, temporal, thematic and tonal. The framework is then applied tothe case study of the redevelopment of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire, tocompare the imaginaries of place leaders and locals, by conducting six semi-structuredinterviews and document analysis. The findings are then operationalised within an indexdeveloped in this paper, to quantitatively map out the orientation of actors’ imaginaries. Thestudy finds that the two groups diverged, to varying degrees, across all four dimensions ofimaginaries. Additionally, it identifies a lack of attachment between past/place-orientedimaginaries and future/space-oriented imaginaries, resulting in development plans without anarrative. It concludes by advancing the need for sense of place and subjective emotions to beinherent in future development plans for the ex-power station site, to reduce the risk of futureconflict and promote a successful post carbon transition.