The all-new episode of Demolition TV is here.

The wait is over – The all-new episode of Demolition TV is finally here. And it’s a corker.

This episode features contributions from Keltbray, Remoquip, Metro Deconstruction, Brown and Mason, Messiah Corporation, and Hughes & Salvidge. Just as importantly, it marks the arrival of our video and audio set-up which is designed to make these episodes even better. It wasn’t used on all elements of this show (although it will be in the future) but see if you can spot the switch-over.

Stack falls after several delays.

One of two smoke stacks at former Sappi paper mill property has been imploded.

City officials were concerned that the 60-metre tall “Power House Stack No. 1” was a public safety risk after large cracks developed in the stack.

Stadium demolition enters final phase in spectacular style.

The demolition of the White Hart Lane stadium the home of Tottenham Hotspur football club, is rapidly drawing to a close. And it is doing so in spectacular style as DSM fells one last high level element of the structure.

Man dies after Splott incident.

A man has died after being trapped in rubble when a church collapsed near a railway line in Cardiff.

Firefighters, rescue dogs and a drone had been searching for the man in the wreckage of the derelict church in Splott, which collapsed at about 14:50 BST.

Two people escaped from the building – which was being demolished – and were treated for minor injures.

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service workers are trying to recover the body.

Gareth Davies, area manager for SWFRS, said the man had been trapped under a large amount of rubble.

He said: “As a service, we wish to extend our sympathies to the individual’s family at this very sad time.”

Cardiff demolition firm Young Contractors, which has been working on the derelict church for about three weeks, confirmed none of its staff were on the site at the time.

Read more here.

Inchgreen dock cranes felled in double implosion.

They stood sentry over the Inchgreen Dock in Scotland for more than fifty years. And then, in seconds, they were gone.

Technical Demolition Services carried out a controlled implosion of the two giants early on Sunday morning:

Goodyear plant demolition delayed…again.

Demolition of Wolverhampton’s last remaining Goodyear plant has been pushed back as the firm decides with developers what should be left standing.

The plant had been due to close on July 1 then July 20 as developers St Modwen submitted plans to take over the land.

Now, closure and demolition of the site has been halted again. Remaining workers were told about the delay on Tuesday.

This is because Goodyear need to decide what to demolish and what to leave standing.

Cyril Barrett, chair of the Unite branch at Goodyear said on Wednesday: “The demolition has been pushed back until late August.

“Workers were told yesterday. Goodyear have got to decide how they are going to do it and what the implications will be.”

The eventual demolition of the remaining Goodyear buildings will be the start of the development of the site.

Read more here.

Adverse weather conditions push back blast…again.

The planned demolition of a smoke stack at the former Sappi property has been delayed.

The 200-plus foot stack that is in “imminent danger” of falling was to be imploded at 8 a.m. July 17, and a new date has not been set.

Weather conditions – specifically the wind direction — have prompted the delay, said Muskegon Public Safety Director Jeffrey Lewis.

The former Sappi property, now called Windward Pointe, is located at 2400 Lakeshore Drive on the south shore of Muskegon Lake.

The stack has asbestos paint on it that originally was to be removed prior to demolition. However, the cement stack’s crumbling condition forced city officials to declare an emergency. That means the asbestos will have to be contained during and after implosion. The plan is to wet the stack to keep dust at a minimum.

The implosion was already delayed once. It had first been ordered by the city for July 13, but weather conditions and the Rebel Road/Bike Time motorcycle events prompted the date to be moved to Monday.

Lewis said he didn’t know the specifics about the concerns with the wind on Monday. “We are on standby,” he saud said.

Read more here.

Today marks the 32nd anniversary of an epic event; and the 20th anniversary of an industry tragedy.

On 13 July 1985, the eyes of the world turned to face Wembley Stadium in London (and, later, the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia) as Live Aid took place.

While the event has been re-assessed by history – at least in part because it spawned so many lesser copycat events and gave rise to the notion of rock stars as self-appointed saviours – for those of us of a certain age, it was our JFK moment. Those of us now in their late 40s and 50s will recall precisely where they were when Status Quo took to the stage to kick off the global event with “rocking all over the world”; will know who they were with when those harrowing images of starving African children were beamed across the globe accompanied by “Drive” by The Cars; will know what they were doing when Freddie Mercury secured his place in rock history with the greatest display of showmanship and audience participation the world has ever seen.

For a family in Australia, however, 13 July has a rather more poignant and tragic flavour.

On 13 July 1997, the Royal Canberra Hospital in Australia was imploded. A chunk of steel was ejected by the blast and killed a 12-year old girl – Katie Bender – who was stood more than 400 metres away on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. That piece of steel was thought to be travelling at 140 km/hour.

The “insufficiently skilled” explosives contractor Rod McCracken was indicted by the coroner for manslaughter but the charges were later dropped and he was ultimately fined $15,000 for a lesser offence.

At the time of her death, Katie Bender was a year-seven student a love for Croatian folk dancing. Today, she would have been a 32-year-old woman, perhaps with a family of her own, had different decisions been made.

By some strange quirk of fate and coincidence, today also marks the fourth anniversary of the passing of my best friend, Bruce. We met at primary school, went through high school together, worked together and – on several occasions – lived together. He was there when I met my wife; he was there for the birth of all four of my children; he was a larger-than-life presence for as long as I can remember. I miss him every day.

And so, I am about to listen to a song by Ultravox, surely the greatest band in the world. Their singer – Midge Ure – was (and remains) an integral part of the Live Aid Foundation; Ultravox performed on the day (including a stunning rendition of their song “Vienna”) before leaving the stage to not play again together with the same line-up for another 20 years.

A few years later – with a changed line-up – the band recorded a song called All in One Day which recalls the day “the people came and stood together”. In typical Ultravox fashion, it was epic and overblown. It gives me chills to this day.

And so, in memory of Live Aid, of little Katie Bender, and of my mate Bruce, I give you:

Multi-disciplined contractor reports profit increase of over 100 percent.

Keltbray Group today announced its financial results for the year ending 31 October 2016, including an increase in turnover from £272.3 million to £369.4 million. Profit before tax increased to £23.6 million from £10.4 million.
 
Keltbray Group now directly employs around 1,300 people across its three business divisions: Demolition & Civil Engineering, Rail and Environmental Materials Management; all of which experienced healthy growth during the year.
 
Keltbray Group’s CEO, Brendan Kerr, said: “We remain focused on continuing to build on our expertise as a specialist contractor which employs, manages and trains our own people. Our goal is to continue to provide an increasingly integrated portfolio of services and invest in our own high-value specialist plant capability. These results reflect this strategy and the large and sometimes very complex technical contracts undertaken in the year, which have a higher risk profile, but provide a higher potential for providing a return in line with the investment we are making to enable us to self-perform these contracts.
 
“While enquiries started to slow down towards the end of the year and the impact of Brexit remains uncertain, we do expect turnover to increase further in 2017, albeit at a slower pace. The outlook across the Group is encouraging and last year we invested more than £15 million in new demolition, piling, rail and structures plant with improved safety features to position ourselves for further growth.”

DemolitionNews’ Mark Anthony takes exception to extended payment terms.

Call me old fashioned, but I still hanker for the days when a product or service was sold and then payment was received in a timely manner.

Sadly, we now live in a post-recessionary age in which main contractors and clients boast openly about how they have pushed their payment terms to 45, 60 and even 90 days; an age in which a whole generation of credit controllers now perceive their primary objective to be sitting on cash until a court summons arrives.

And for all the talk of Fair pay schemes, it is the specialist and sub-contractors – those at the bottom of the industry pecking order – that are made to suffer: