In March 2012 Norland applied to Newcastle City Council for permission to demolish the building on the grounds of it being at risk of collapse.

In the area around Newcastle upon Tyne, this required the opening of power stations at Wallsend, Forth Banks and The Close.

The works were largely demolished, but some of the ironworks' buildings and chimneys still stood unused, and the power station was built amongst them.

[3] The station consists of a parallel boiler house and turbine hall, which creates a large double-gabled building.

[7] Coal was hauled from the staithes to the power station, before being dumped directly into overhead hoppers in the boiler house.

The building of a power station brought major environmental improvements to what was a highly polluted area, because electricity represented a much cleaner source of household energy than coal, which was used at the time.

A partner in the enterprise of the Lemington power station was Sir Matthew White Ridley, who had considerable interests in coal and banking.

[8] Production of electricity in the station ceased in 1919, ushered in by the completion of an extension to generating equipment at Newburn Steelworks.

[3][9] The building was retained and continued to be used to supply power to the tram route by housing a sub-station, which used rotary converters.

In 2003, Newcastle City Council released plans that they hoped to redevelop the site for heritage tourism in the future.