Gormley and Cocker fight to save iconic towers

For some, they are an unwelcome remnant of Yorkshire's industrial past, but two disused cooling towers familiar to millions of motorists on the M1 and immortalised by Jarvis Cocker in his Pulp track "My Legendary Girlfriend" have become the subject of an intense preservation battle, with the artist Antony Gormley joining Cocker in the fight to save them.

The 230ft (70m) concrete structures, known locally as Bill and Ben, or Salt and Pepper, have been selected by Channel 4's Big Art Show, along with five other sites in Britain, to become the subject of a major public art commission. The problem is that the owners, the power company EonUK, want to knock them down, saying that they are structurally unsound.

Gormley, whose Angel of the North on Tyneside is testament to the artistic potential of roadside constructions, has stepped into the battle over the merits of the towers, 20 yards from the M1 at the Tinsley viaduct in Sheffield, saying it would be an act of cultural vandalism to knock them down. He believes the towers are "intrinsically beautiful" and "are to the Industrial Revolution what cathedrals were to the medieval world". Cocker has also said he supports their conservation.

In Sheffield, Eon.UK's decision has prompted a response from Tom James and Tom Keeley, the two local men campaigning to turn them into an iconic emblem of the city. They cite an independent opinion by James Croll, professor of civil engineering at University College, London - a specialist on cooling towers - who says the Tinsley Two are in good condition.

They are urging people to boycott Eon in protest and have used their website - www.myspace.com/coolingthetowers - to publish the e-mail address of Eon's chief executive, Paul Golby, for supporters to lobby him. They have also begun an on-line petition, which received 1,000 names in its first week.

The towers, among the oldest in Britain, were built 70 years ago for an experimental power station serving Sheffield's steel industry. It closed in the 1970s, but the towers were spared because demolition threatened the road bridge. Now Eon believes safer techniques have evolved and it wants to develop the site.

"We see this as the gateway to the North," said Mr James. "People say seeing the towers from the motorway shows they are in Yorkshire. We know they are not the most beautiful things in the world, but they are a mark of what Sheffield has been about for the past 100 years. We are trying to introduce a 'big idea'. Sheffield's regeneration so far has been very 'safe'. We have nothing which stands out. This could become a symbol of the city."

Their plans to use the towers as an art installation topped Channel 4's poll to find six schemes across Britain for its Big Art Project. They will all share a £2m fund put up by the network.