Georgia power plant imploded in spectacular fashion.

The power plant at Lake Sinclair is no more. Georgia Power demolished the plant Saturday after 50 years of providing successful service to the community.

Georgia Power shut down the plant two years ago, and since then they have already demolished a smoke stack, but Saturday they demolished the whole building.

Holly Crawford a spokesman for Georgia Power said the building was outdated. “We’re doing the demolition of plant branch boilers, for those of you who don’t know what boilers are, they help turn water into steam to help create electricity,” she said.

Former Times Media building felled in implosion.

The building that used to house Times Media at Rosebank, Johannesburg in South Africa has been imploded.

The building was imploded to make space for The Galleria, a 90,000 square metre development that will consist of offices, a hotel and apartments, among other things.

Waste management show provided plenty to see.

The RWM exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham is an annual show aimed squarely at the waste management and recycling fraternity. And, as ever, the show had its fair share of refuse vehicles, anaerobic digesters and wheelie bins.

But with the modern demolition industry so closely allied with the waste sector and – in many instances – leading the waste minimisation and materials reuse charge, the latest incarnation of the show also had plenty on offer for the passing demolition man (or woman).

Eyesore set to be redeveloped into homes.

A multi-storey car park earmarked for development for more than decade is set to be demolished.

The Teville Gate multi-storey car park and the surrounding area in Worthing town centre has been identified as a prime plot for new homes and commercial space.

Demand for parking on the site has been decreasing while running and maintenance costs have risen.

The 114 spaces still available are rarely filled.

Worthing Borough Council says it would cost £2 million over the next four years to keep the car park open.

The council has now agreed to release the funds needed to kickstart plans to demolish the 1960s building. The £1.6 million demolition cost will be funded from the local growth fund provided by the Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership.

Officials said the move had the added incentive of encouraging the freeholder Mosaic to consider demolishing the other buildings on the site.

Mosaic could then submit more formal redevelopment plans to help create a new gateway to the town.

The site acts as a link between Worthing’s main train station and the town centre.

Read more here.

Acquisition creates drilling and sawing super-group.

Robore, the UK’s leading diamond drilling and sawing contractor, has completed the acquisition of Holemasters in a deal that will make Robore-Holemasters the largest diamond drilling and sawing contractor throughout Europe.

Robore is already recognised as the UK’s leading provider for diamond drilling and specialist cutting services, predominately within the South Eastern construction industry. The addition of Holemasters national coverage, technology and expertise will enable both companies to apply these specialist skills to an even larger variety of sectors, and with a combined workforce of over 200 employees puts us firmly on the map as the UK’s No 1.

Robore founded in 1986 has since grown from our London based head office, to become one of the largest diamond drilling and sawing and controlled robotic demolition companies throughout the UK with over 100 employees. Founded in 1996, Holemasters Ltd was formed out of Demtech Concrete Services Ltd, which started trading in 1991. It currently employs 25 staff, 90 operators from offices in Cumbria, Bolton, South Yorkshire, Redditch and Enfield, London.

Commenting on acquisition, David Rickus Managing Director of Robore and David Bailie Managing Director at Holemasters, said: “We are delighted to be joining forces to expand our respective business. With our shared belief in the professionalism of our staff and combined expertise and experience within the construction industry will prove beneficial to our ever increasing blue chip client base.

Both Robore and Holemasters will continue to trade under their existing names following the acquisition.

Training Group rallying member support as axe hangs over CITB.

The National Demolition Training Group (NDTG), the specialist training arm of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors (NFDC), is rallying members to support calls to retain the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).

The CITB is currently facing its triennial consensus vote which it needs to win to allow it to continue collecting levy cash from contractors.

But the CITB – a key provider of grant funding to the NDTG – has come in for intense criticism recently, particularly from Balfour Beatty group chief executive Leo Quinn.

He attacked the skills body for failing to train enough workers, being too big, bureaucratic and unaccountable. “Currently, the CITB occupies a pivotal role in providing all of us in the sector with the skilled workers we need. Bluntly, the present skills shortage shows it hasn’t been doing this for some time. The Levy paid into the CITB – let alone its other income – provides it with a budget comparable to a good-sized public company. But while PLCs are subject to rigorous corporate governance, CITB has a fundamental governance weakness: it is not closely and regularly accountable to the industry it exists to serve. Given that CITB raises £200 million a year via the Levy, the lack of detail in the information it has provided to date is truly concerning.”

DemolitionNews understands that a round-robin email has been circulated to all NFDC members, encouraging them to demonstrate their support for the retention of the CITB and – thereby – to retain the grant funding the NDTG currently enjoys.

Voting for the consensus closes tomorrow. The results are scheduled to be published in October.

Report further exonerates failed demolition company too late.

The failed demolition of two Seaforth tower blocks cost a contractor £600,000 and helped force it into administration, a new report has revealed.

J Bryan (Victoria) led the demolition of Churchill and Montgomery House in Seaforth – but they both failed to come down during a controlled implosion back in April last year. A Health and Safety Executive report into the demolition, released in January, revealed that hidden steel pipes filled with concrete were the reason the blocks didn’t come down as planned.

Widnes-based J Bryan collapsed in June blaming cash flow problems after the failed implosion. Now a full report from administrators Mazars has revealed just what the demolition cost the firm.

It says: “In April 2016, the company carried out a demolition in Bootle, which due to errors in calculation by a subcontractor, resulted in a failure to demolish two of the three residential blocks involved. This resulted in significant costs, estimated at some £600,000, being incurred by the company, either directly or through lost debt recoveries from its customer,”

To meet the cost the company increased its overdraft with HSBC from £350,000 to £600,000.

J Bryan launched an insurance claim against the subcontractor but so far that claim has only brought in one payment of £191,000.

Mazars is continuing the insurance claim against the demolition subcontractor.

Read more here.

Work is underway to demolish the iconic Pontiac Silverdome.

The former home of the Detroit Lines is coming down at last; and a new drone film captures the sheer magnitude of the task facing the demolition contractor.

The Pontiac Silverdome stadium opened in 1975 and sits on 51 hectares of land. In its heyday, it had a seating capacity of 82,000.

When it opened, it featured a fiberglass fabric roof held up by air pressure, the first use of the technique in a major athletic facility. The roof has since been removed prior to the current phase of demolition.

Famous Kensington townhouse faces the chop.

The property developer who painted red and white stripes on her multi million-pound townhouse has won her appeal over her plans to demolish it.

Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring always denied the paint job was done to spite her neighbours who objected to her plans to redevelop the £4.75m three-storey property in Kensington, west London, replacing it with a new home and changing its use from storage to residential.

Neighbour Niall Carroll asked the High Court to quash a planning inspector’s decision to grant permission for the work.

The businessman said the inspector failed to have proper regard to the material consideration of a possible reversion of the property to office use and failed to give adequate reasons for his conclusions.

In October last year, Mrs Justice Lang accepted that it appeared that the inspector misdirected himself in law in his consideration of the possible future reversion.

In a ruling made public on Monday, three judges in the Court of Appeal restored the inspector’s decision.

Read more here:

Driver praised following incident on A66.

Manchester-based demolition company KDC has issued a statement on an incident last week in which a Hitachi 670 excavator fell from a low loader while it was being transported.

Whilst apologising for any inconvenience caused by the incident, KDC states categorically that it was in no way responsible for the incident as the machine was being transported by haulier, J.C. Guillespie Limited.

The haulier has issued the following statement:

On Friday morning , 8/9/17, one of our 10 axle low loaders carrying a Hitachi 670 excavator was involved in a serious incident on the A66 in North Yorkshire.

Michael Gillespie
For and on behalf of
J.C.Gillespie Limited