Jet Demolition carries out successful blast in Kochi, India.

It wa sjust a few shorts weeks ago that we reported on Jet Demolition carrying out the controlled explosive demolition of the former Bank of Lisbon building in the company’s native South Africa. But now the company has carried out an equally succesful blast in India to further cement its position as a growing force in the international explosive demolition stakes.

The last of the four illegal apartment complexes in Maradu in Kochi was razed down through controlled implosion, marking the completion of the demolition drive against the waterfront high rises ordered by the Supreme Court over three months ago for “violation of Coastal Regulation Zone norms”.

Court papers reveal CMA raid on DSM.

The legal battle between the current and the former owners of DSM Demolition grows more acrimonious with each passing day. But while the legal machinations are unpleasant, they are also illuminating.

The England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions entry for the case posted on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website is an impenetrable morass of legal jargon, littered with litigants, appellants and other phrases designed to confound and confuse.

But item 34 of Lord Justice Simon’s findings is revealing as it confirms that the DSM offices have previously been raided by officers from the Competition and Markets Authority, presumably as part of the ongoing investigation into alleged collusion within the UK demolition sector.

That investigation remains ongoing; and there is nothing within the court papers to suggest that DSM has been guilty of any wrongdoing. But this is the first time that the name of one of the six or seven demolition firms thought to be under investigation has been made public; and it gives lie to the suggestion that the CMA investigation is merely a journalistic fiction.

You can read those court papers here.

DSM in industrial espionage and phone tapping case.

2019 was already a bad year for the UK demolition industry. Tainted by multiple site deaths and accidents, tarnished by a flurry of scaffold collapses, blotted by an ongoing investigation into collusion and blackened by a scathing indictment from the UK’s largest union; it was hard to imagine that the industry’s reputation could sink any lower.

But now one of the industry’s largest and most-profitable contractors finds itself at the very heart of an ongoing court case replete with claims of industrial espionage and covert telephone bugging.

According to a report in the Law Society Gazette, the office of Adrian Kennedy, in-house solicitor at demolition business DSM SFG, was bugged for two months at the end of 2018 and 40 hours of conversations recorded. Many of the conversations were ‘privileged and confidential’ ones between Kennedy and Stuart McNeill of Pinsent Masons.

According to the judgment, litigant John Thomas Kelly admitted in a witness statement to asking a retired police officer to bug the office after he became anxious about a £23 million transaction in which he sold interest in various businesses. The litigation concerns whether Kelly could rely on the covert recordings to support a legal claim.

More details here.

Instead of a fresh start, demolition starts the New Year still wreaking of 2019.

It landed like a gift-wrapped dog turd; an explosive reality check timed to ensure that anyone thinking we could leave the tragic events of last year beneath the 2019 rug would need to think again.

On Christmas Eve, the UK’s largest union – Unite – called for immediate improvements to health and safety standards within the demolition sector following what it described as a “horrendous year”. Calling upon the Health and Safety Executive to investigate the plethora of accidents and incidents experienced by the industry during 2019, Unite also said it will be pressuring enforcement agencies and employers to step up their efforts to safeguard demolition workers.

This unprecedented statement comes in the wake of a year in which the demolition sector suffered four high profile fatalities together with four very public scaffold collapses in quick succession. Unite also pointed to incomplete or unsatisfactory investigations into the tragedies at Didcot, Oxford, involving Coleman and Company, in which four men died in 2016 after a disused power station collapsed; and the 2014 death of man who was crushed after a digger fell through the a concrete slab that was being demolished by McGee in Grosvenor Square, London.

“As we approach 2020, Unite demands to know what the industry and enforcement agencies are going to do to address these incidents and ensure next year is a safe year for demolition workers,” the union says.

In an instant, the demolition sector found itself outflanked, out-of-step and massively outgunned. As usual, the industry treated the four fatalities and the series of scaffold collapses with a practiced silence, choosing to ignore the elephant in the room even while that elephant was taking a shit on the carpet. The Unite union clearly has no time nor patience for that approach. It has instead trumpeted the elephant’s presence across the national media; and that could cost the industry dearly in the long run.

The UK demolition industry comprises less than 550 contractors. Unite has more than 1.2 million members. The demolition hierarchy might speak to the HSE on a regular basis, but Unite has sufficient clout to make it sit up and take notice. Unite also has the ear of government. So while the NFDC recently offered its members assurances that the HSE was not considering any form of licensing, it had reckoned without the interjection by the UK’s largest union. The fact that the Unite press statement mentions the HSE and enforcement agencies as separate entities surely suggests that it supports some other form of enforcement.

In truth, the implementation of a licensing scheme – similar to that operated in both the asbestos and waste sectors – is gaining support from the demolition industry itself. Many believe that the possible revocation of a license would prove to be the ultimate deterrent to less scrupulous operators while ensuring a single standard for the entire industry. I have said it before and I shall say it again: The only people that need worry about the licensing of demolition are those contractors that would be incapable of achieving the criterion; and those that fear their perceived power base might be diminished. Neither of those outcomes would be a bad thing.

And so, the UK demolition industry finds itself starting the New Year and the New Decade being taken to task by the country’s largest union; still under investigation for alleged collusion; still under investigation over four site deaths; and still under investigation over four scaffold collapses.

Many – myself included – would have hoped that we might all start the New Year with a clean slate and ready to put in place some New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, we look set to start 2020 with a sizeable and very public hangover.

Union responds to “horrendous year” for demolition.

Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, said today that 2020 must bring safety improvements for demolition workers following a number of fatalities and accidents this year.

Highlighting a series of major incidents in 2019 within the demolition industry, Unite said it would be writing to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the new year to demand that the incidents are investigated properly and lessons implemented.

Unite also said it will be pressuring enforcement agencies and employers to step up their efforts to safeguard demolition workers.

Major incidents in 2019 include four deaths at three different sites and the collapse of scaffolding around a derelict shopping centre in Reading that was being demolished by McGee.

In February this year, a demolition worker employed by Brown and Mason died at the Longannet power station in Fife. Two more demolition workers employed by JF Hunt died at Redcar Steelworks, North Yorkshire, in September, while one Veolia employee died and another was seriously injured while dismantling a gas rig in Great Yarmouth in October.

Unite also pointed to incomplete or unsatisfactory investigations into the tragedies at Didcot, Oxford, involving Coleman and Company, in which four men died in 2016 after a disused power station collapsed, and the 2014 death of man who was crushed after a digger fell through the a concrete slab that was being demolished by McGee in Grosvenor Square, London.

Unite national officer for construction Jerry Swain said: “This year has been horrendous for the demolition industry. In addition to four fatalities, we had a major scaffold collapse during the demolition of a shopping centre in Reading, in which thankfully no one was killed.

“There must be a full inquiry into the scaffold collapse that cannot be limited simply to its immediate causes. It must also examine whether the work had been sub-let, the competence of the company carrying out the work, the role of the client, whether all the workers on site were correctly employed and if they had all the appropriate skills and training.

“It is essential that we learn the lessons from this accident, which could have been far more serious, to prevent similar incidents occurring in the future. For too long there has been inadequate investigations and responses to accidents and dangerous conditions in the demolition industry and workers continue to pay for that with their lives.

“For instance, why are we are still in a position that closure has not been reached on the four fatalities at Didcot in 2016 or the death at Grosvenor Square in 2014? That’s five families still waiting for an outcome, years after the tragedies happened.

“As we approach 2020, Unite demands to know what the industry and enforcement agencies are going to do to address these incidents and ensure next year is a safe year for demolition workers.

“Clients need to take some responsibility for ensuring contractors are employing workers in core activities rather than simply sub-letting everything. They could carry out checks on how many workers each contractor covers in the industry’s B&CE Death Benefit Scheme, which provides life insurance. That would give them an indication as to how many demolition workers each contractor employs directly. A simple but effective check”

Contractor demolishes wrong house…again.

Just like Santa, a contractor should check his (demolition) list twice.

Detroit’s largest demolition contractor is under investigation and faces suspension after it demolished the wrong home — and it’s not the first time that it happened.

The Adamo Group was given a $25,201 contract to demolish a fire-damaged house at 14461 Alma Ave. on June 18 — but misread the house number and in November razed the building at 14661 Alma Ave. instead. A similar mishap occurred in May last year.

The Detroit Building Authority Special Projects Director Brian Farkas confirmed to the Detroit Free Press the company is facing a minimum 90-day suspension from bidding, and that “Adamo was suspended for 90 days in May 2018 for a similar offense.”

An attorney for Adamo, which has collected over $58 million in federal and state-funded demolitions since 2014, declined comment.

Read more here.