83 years ago this week, the German Luftwaffe began its Blitzkreig on London. The UK capital was bombed systematically for 56 of the following 57 nights. In the air, the British response was swift with the Royal Air Force locked in a bloody battle to regain air superiority in the nation’s skies. With buildings destroyed,…Read moreRead more
Comment
How times change…
Opinion – What a waste
I’d like you to imagine a young demolition or construction worker. They are green, and have no experience. I’d like you to imagine that person as a large but empty glass bowl (and if anyone has seen the new Oppenheimer movie, you will know precisely where I stole this metaphor). Every time that person attends…Read moreRead more
An empty seat at the table
The venue is appropriately grand for a discussion of such magnitude; a vast oak-panelled room with a preposterously high ceiling. On the walls are oil paintings of venerable luminaries from the past. Their faces may be unfamiliar but their names and their accomplishments have echoed down the ages. From the magnificent ceiling is slung a…Read moreRead more
The sound of silence
Whether it is the Didcot Disaster or the loss of red diesel; the CMA investigation or concerns over embedded carbon, the UK demolition industry’s response is always the same.
Opinion – A lack of joined-up thinking
Regardless of how you voted in the Brexit referendum back in June 2016, I think we can all agree that – for the demolition and construction industry, at least – the outcome was a disaster. It was like we collectively pulled out a shotgun, aimed at our foot, and pulled the trigger. In an instant,…Read moreRead more
Comment – Holding us back
I recently had the opportunity to visit one of the world’s foremost demolition contractors.Despe is the Gold Standard of demolition. A winner of multiple World Demolition Awards, the Italian company is a high watermark for all things demolition. The company operates at a standard to which others can only aspire. But for every Bugatti Veyron,…Read moreRead more
Demolition. Not so evil now, is it?
Demolition is evil. It is the spawn of Satan; an industry forged in the very fires of Hell. If you listened to holier-than-thou politicians in recent months, you might believe that demolition was a phenomenon delivered unto the world by Beelzebub himself. Demolition contractors, wandering the streets in packs, demolishing all those lovely historic buildings…Read moreRead more
Opinion – Deadened to death
For those of us of a certain age, the Band Aid song “Do they know it’s Christmas” – released in 1984 – and the Live Aid benefit concert that took place some seven months, are historical landmarks. For a short time, there was a very real feeling that music really could change and possibly save…Read moreRead more
Comment – Does demolition have the appetite for change?
At some point a year or two after the Didcot Disaster that killed four demolition men, I posited that there would come a time when we would all look back and see that Didcot had been a turning point; that the industry would have been changed irrevocably. I suggested that demolition’s history would be divided…Read moreRead more
This story is far from over
It ultimately took just over three years for the Competition and Markets Authority to make an infringement decision. Three years of wading through the sewage that lies just beneath the surface of the UK demolition industry. Three years of examining the soft underbelly of a sector that has fought long and hard for respectability but…Read moreRead more
