For 30 years, the listing for Battersea Power Station in the London A-Z has alternated between “under development” and “disused”. Right now, it’s very much the former.

London’s best-known ruin buzzes with traffic. Built in the 1930s and abandoned since 1983, the power station is covered in scaffolding and has just a single new chimney; three original, rotten chimneys have been demolished and are being rebuilt. In the building’s shadow, blocks of flats are rising, acres of glass that obstruct long-cherished views.

When supposedly finished in 2025, this will be one of the densest developments in London: an upscale “urban village” of residences, hotels and leisure facilities, owned by the Malaysian state pension fund. The refurbished power station itself will contain offices (Apple is a possible tenant), flats and retail, with shops filling the bulk of the cavernous interior. There will even be a new tube station. One of London’s great white elephants will finally, after three decades of dereliction, have been conquered.

Some believed this would never happen, although Boris Johnson was on typical form in July 2013 when visiting Battersea with David Cameron and the prime minister of Malaysia. “There is no going back now,” Johnson said. “All the doubters are going to be blown away. This is going to happen.”

But did it have to happen in quite this fashion? Over the years, dozens of other ideas have been proposed.

1. Aeronautical museum

Battersea Power Station was awarded heritage status in 1980, and The Times immediately began speculating what it could be used for when it closed, as by then was assumed to be inevitable. The newspaper’s suggestion? “An aeronautical museum, perhaps hung with Spitfires and Swordfishes – or even Concorde, pointing skywards.”

2. Sports centre

The Times also asked readers for their own suggestions, offering a £10 prize. The winner was Bernard Dembo of Maidenhead, who thought it could be used for swimming, squash, tennis, rollerskating, athletics and skateboarding, with an artificial pitch for football or hockey. Other suggestions from readers included a new home for MPs – the chimneys could be used to “carry away the hot air” – as well as a church and flats for the elderly. In 1983, a similar contest threw up suggestions for an “awe-inspiring mosque”, or the centrepiece of an exposition like the 1951 Festival of Britain.

3. Rubbish incinerator

In 1982 a company called the Lesser Group submitted a plan to return the power station, if somewhat unglamorously, to industrial use. The incinerator would burn 500,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, generating electricity and using one of the chimneys. Planning permission was granted, but the building’s owners, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), had other plans.

4. Theme park of science and technology

In 1984, the CEGB held a competition for developers to come up with viable schemes for the power station. The winning entry was a theme park, aimed somewhere between Disneyland and the Science Museum, on the loose theme of British industry and the history of London. It would have a model R101 airship, reconstructions of the Euston Arch and SS Great Eastern, and thrill rides based on the blitz, the Great Fire and Dan Dare. There would even be a replica coal mine, and a room for “industrial revolution horrors”.

5. The Bathat

This whimsical, speculative scheme was dreamed up by architect Cedric Price, who suggested in Building Design magazine that the entire building be demolished except for the chimneys. It was a kind of visual pun – but one that acknowledged the importance of the chimneys to the building’s popularity.

6. South Chelsea Fun Palace

South Chelsea Fun Palace was an alternative name for The Battersea, the theme park planned by John Broome of Alton Towers, who took control of the CEGB’s winning scheme and was a dominant figure in the 1980s history of the power station. With galleries themed, somewhat jarringly, around five continents, this was essentially a giant shopping centre with rides. Broome persuaded Margaret Thatcher to attend a naming ceremony in 1988 but never had the money to fulfil his plans. He sold to Parkview in 1993.

7. Neverland UK

In 1996 – when the building’s owners were investigating the possibility of turning the power station into a gigantic cinema – Michael Jackson took a tour with a Saudi prince, looking to purchase it for their proposed Kingdom Entertainment theme park. This “self-contained fantasy centre” would be a Neverland theme park, recreating London landmarks and featuring Peter Pan-themed rides. The Saudi prince had sponsored Jackson’s HIStory tour, and the pair visited locations in Europe and America for the proposed theme park, but parted company before anything happened.

8. Spiritual power station

At around the same time, the Catholic Herald reported that Holy Trinity Brompton – whose congregation included model and singer Samantha Fox – were considering “redeveloping the site as a religious theme park”. Unsurprisingly, this went no further; nor did plans by the Trocadero Group to turn it into a Noddyland theme park.

9. Circus

Ignoring advice from the Duke of Edinburgh to “knock the bloody thing down”, Parkview’s next plan involved turning the power station into a permanent base for Cirque du Soleil, the creative modern circus troupe from Canada. A temporary area was even set up in the grounds, but again the plan s failed to materialise. In 2006, a defeated Parkview sold to Irish developers Treasury, who planned a dense mixed-use development with architect Rafael Viñoly – before themselves being wiped out in the 2008 crash.

10. Football ground

With the power station again up for grabs, Roman Abramovich made a formal bid to turn it into a spectacular new home for Chelsea football club. They drew up plans with architects Kohn Pedersen Fox for a 60,000-seat stadium to be wedged into the side of the building. A bravura concept, but never popular with the council or English Heritage, and joint administrators from Ernst and Young had their eye on a different plan: a £400m bid from a Malaysian consortium that would require no further planning permission.

11. Managed ruin

As the Malaysian bid simmered, architect Terry Farrell drew up speculative plans for a managed ruin, remodelling the walls into an open colonnade and allowing the central area to become a public park. This would be paid for by surrounding low-density housing and, Farrell believed, “would create a memory of the building that is truer to its history than what will actually happen”.

Farrell was bang on. The administrators chose the Malaysian scheme, and the power station is now the central element of an oversized sculpture park featuring buildings by Frank Gehry and Norman Foster. While it’s great to see the building finally receive its much-needed restoration, the final outcome is depressingly bland.

But perhaps Battersea Power Station will outlive this, too, and a century from now, when the surrounding blocks have fallen to the wrecking ball of redevelopment, the power station will still stand proudly, allowing a new generation to look upon its brick splendour and dream.

Up in Smoke: The Failed Dreams of Battersea Power Station, by Peter Watts, is out now.

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