Latest Diggers and Dozers film features NTSG 15-HD grapple from Northerntrack.

The team over at Diggers and Dozers are continuing their inexorable rise to world supremacy in the hotly-contested demolition video market with another of their popular Walk Around product focus series. This time, the spotlight and the camera’s glare falls upon the NTSG 15-HD demolition grapple from our old friends at Northerntrack.

Northerntrack supremo Andy Hair looks at the heavy duty construction and materials that go into making this grapple one of the strongest and most durable on the market.

If you’re in the market for a grapple, or even if you’re just a fan of the Yorkshire accent, we highly recommend this film:

Time-lapse footage of aircraft demolition.

It looks oddly like a predatory bird pecking away at the long-dead corpse of a larger animal. But don’t let that put you off.

This time-lapse film captures the dismantling of one of the world’s first Boeing 707 aircraft being eaten by an Allied-Gator MTR 70 attachment. The process apparently took around three hours but this film neatly condenses it into just under two minutes.

RVA gets the nod on polystyrene plant decommissioning.

Total Petrochemicals UK Ltd has appointed RVA Group to oversee and co-ordinate the demanding decommissioning and demolition of its historic polystyrene manufacturing site close to the centre of Stalybridge near Manchester. Ipswich-based RVA has previously worked with Total and its associated companies on similar site closure schemes.

Extensive pre-demolition survey and identification work began in June, along with the appointment of a demolition contractor. The dismantling operation itself commenced in September and is running ahead of its scheduled mid December completion date.

The location, which is adjacent to the River Tame and the Huddersfield Canal, live railway lines as well as a primary school and busy public highway, presents many additional logistical considerations including the removal of 2 bridges spanning the river.

Commenting on the new contract RVA Group managing director Richard Vann said: “We’re becoming the specialist consultant of choice for ambitious dismantling operations in the UK as well as internationally. This is due to our hard-earned experience with large-scale, high-hazard and complicated projects.

“Projects on this scale require enhanced and detailed planning along with sophisticated teamwork to achieve the best possible outcome. We’re also cost-effective because our expert technical team is supported by highly competent project managers, safety advisers and CDM co-ordinators with decades of sector-specific experience between them.”

Key figures leave amidst debt swap deal.

Industry news site Construction Enquirer is reporting more details of the bail-out plan at asbestos and demolition company Silverdell.

The company has a new owner after bankers HSBC sold its £16 million debt position to turnaround investor Rcapital Partners LLP.

The rescue deal sees Silverdell sell subsidiaries Redhill Analysts Ltd and RDS Asbestos Management Consultants UK Ltd to Rcapital for a token £1 as the new owner takes on a debt obligation of £5.5m.

The remaining Silverdell group companies owe Rcapital £10.5 million and the new owners “will conduct a review to further understand the cash requirements of the remaining Group.”

The deal also sees Stuart Doughty, John Matthews, Mark Watts and Mark Hazlewood resigning as directors of Silverdell plc with immediate effect. Sean Nutley will remain on the board and is sharing in the investment risk and returns with Rcapital.

Read more here.

Bridge blast catches amateur cameraman unawares.

Even those of us living on this side of the pond have grown accustomed to the shout of “fire in the hole” just prior to a US demolition blast. But when that warning is absent, it can take even the most laid-back amateur cameramen and commentators by surprise.

Thankfully, this guy managed to capture all the action as the first portion of the Hurricane Deck Bridge was imploded earlier this week. The next blast is scheduled for roughly two weeks time.

Your chance to join the UK’s most-decorated demolition company.

Over the past four or five years, Kent-based Erith Group has won just about every plaudit available in the demolition industry including the coveted World Demolition Contractor of the Year title just a few short years ago.

With the company still very much on the expansion trail, it has announced a number of key job opportunities including:

• Project Manager
• Health & Safety Manager
• Site Document Controller

For your chance to join one of the UK’s biggest and most-respected demolition companies, click the links above or visit our sister website demolition-jobs.co.uk for further details on how to apply.

Even though the recession is officially over, suicidal pricing persists across the UK.

Parts of the UK demolition industry are starting to resemble those lost Japanese soldiers that continued to fight WWII alone on remote Pacific islands, blissfully unaware that peace had been declared decades earlier.

For while the UK economy has been officially out of recession for more than a year now and large swathes of the country are enjoying or anticipating a demolition upturn, the suicidal bidding that became so entrenched in the darkest days of the downturn still persists.

This, in itself, is a learned lunacy and flies in the face of the demolition industry’s traditional “make hay while the sun shines” mantra. Indeed, the sector’s traditional role as an early indicator of financial wellbeing has been replaced by a “first in, last out” mentality that has left it isolated in the recessionary doldrums.

That, however, is only a part of the problem. Allied to the low bidding is a willingness to take on work today that would have been dismissed and disregarded just a few years ago: contracts that are too small to warrant the “big company” approach; contracts that are too far from home to be economically viable; contracts that are outside a company’s comfort zone.

Perhaps the biggest issue facing the business today, however, is an impaired speed of response, so oddly reminiscent of an ageing boxer that has fought a few times too many.

Costs for fuel, insurance, materials and site security are all on the rise, and January is traditionally the time for a hike in small tool hire prices. And with Speedy Hire – industry leader and arbiter – currently staring down the barrel of a financial investigation, you can rest assured there WILL be a hike. These price increases are being felt even by those demolition companies that HAVE reacted to the positive upturn; those same price increases could prove to be terminal for those that persist in low pricing.

It is now unusual for a day to go by without a phone call or email at Demolition News Towers prophesising the imminent demise of one demolition company or another. While we have learned to treat much of this as speculation, devilment and mischief making by competitors or disgruntled former employees, some of those prophecies are starting to ring true. If the rumour mill is to be believed, there are at least three big name demolition firms teetering on the brink right now; and those are just the ones we know about.

Unless the industry wakes up and embraces the upturn, we fear that number could grow.

Overnight implosion takes down three external rams at Houston stadium.

The three exterior ramp towers outside the Astrodome were demolished Sunday evening in southwest Houston.

In what took only a matter of seconds, the towers came down right at 9:30 pm local time.

The work had been planned regardless of the outcome of a public vote earlier this month on a $217 million bond issue that would turn the stadium into an event and exhibition center.
Harris County voters rejected the proposal.

The towers never were part of any new plans involving the Astrodome. They all were built in the late 1980s to help accommodate an expansion intended to keep the Houston Oilers football team in Houston.

Read more here or view the videos below:

Victorian pier faces demolition amidst cost-cutting.

The historic pier at Colwyn Bay could be knocked down.

About £15m is needed to restore the crumbling Victoria Pier, which dates back to 1900, to it’s former glory.

But now, for the first time, councillors are to discuss the option of whether to demolish it once and for all.

A report due to be discussed this week says demolishing the pier would cost Conwy County Council nearly £1 million.

Another option among six put forward is to turn it into a boardwalk.

The authority is currently spending £53,000 a year maintaining the Grade 2 listed structure which has been derelict since 2008.

Conwy County Borough Council has been trying to raise millions to restore it, since taking over ownership last year.

Read more here.

Rescue investor arrives as more staff head for the exit.

Silverdell, the asbestos giant that owns Euro Decommissioning Services (EDS) has reportedly secured a rescue deal designed to safeguard more than 1,000 jobs.

The company was plunged into turmoil in July when trading in its shares was suspended. Listed on London’s junior AIM market, it specialises in clearing asbestos from old industrial sites.

Rcapital – the company behind the rescue of troubled roadside dining chain Little Chef – has taken control after it bought out loans held by HSBC, Silverdell’s bank, and will begin work on a survival plan over the coming weeks. The deal could be announced to the stock exchange this week.

The share-trading suspension, triggered when one of Silverdell’s subsidiaries was put into administration before being bought back by EDS, is expected to remain in place after the deal with Rcapital. Shares in Silverdell last traded at 12.9p, valuing the company at £40.4 million.

It is understood Rcapital will look at a range of options, including a refinancing, fresh capital, and a break-up.

However, DemolitionNews understands that this is only a part of the story. On 16 October, we exclusively revealed that EDS group MD Darren Palin had left the company. More recently, Silverdell’s interim managing director Phil Farnworth has also departed for pastures new. And according to a number of industry sources, several more members of the EDS stable are also heading for the exit.