The pattern store, along with the medical centre and the master mechanics office were protected by a interim heritage order.

However, that order was revoked by the state heritage minister earlier this month, with the buildings to be demolished as part of the site remediation works.

The Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association will use some of the sandstone blocks for a BHP memorial to be unveiled later this year, while commemorative and memorial plaques to be removed from the medical centre will be donated to the Newcastle Regional Museum.

A spokesperson for the Port of Newcastle said the whole site needed to be remediated for any future business activity.

The land where the old BHP buildings stand was transferred to a private operator with the 98-year lease of the Port of Newcastle, with the Port of Newcastle managing the site. 

A demolition date for the buildings had not been set, the port spokesperson said. 

PLANS to demolish the final three buildings standing on the old BHP steelworks site can proceed after a interim heritage order to stop the work was revoked.

The Heritage Council of NSW revoked a interim heritage order on the former medical centre, master mechanics office and pattern store at Mayfield, on David Baker Road.

The future of the buildings had been under a cloud after the land the buildings stand on was transferred to a private operator with the 98-year lease of the Port of Newcastle.

Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association vice-president Aubrey Brooks said the news was devastating.

The association hoped the buildings would be preserved as a cultural monument.

"BHP was a dangerous place to work and lot of people lost their lives there. Some of the people that worked at the BHP took their last breath in that medical centre," he said.

The group still wants to save the Pattern Store that was built from historic sandstone blocks, which came from Duckenfield Park House, a Morpeth 1800s mansion.