Appeal aims to jail asbestos violator for contempt of court

A notorious Canadian demolition contractor who repeatedly exposed his unprotected workers to asbestos contamination is again in the crosshairs of WorkSafeBC.

Arthur Moore last year defied repeated orders from the workplace safety agency and then continued his asbestos removal and demolition business in violation of a court injunction granted last August that indefinitely barred him from operating.

WorkSafeBC tried this spring to have Moore jailed for contempt of court but lost the case on a technicality.

An appeal has now been filed that could, if successful, put him behind bars for up to 120 days.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Watchuk last month found Moore was a “significant public safety concern” because he recruited vulnerable workers, including young teenagers and recovering addicts.

“Numerous employees were repeatedly exposed to asbestos,” she ruled, adding there was a “compelling case” for jailing Moore.

Read more here.

Demolition firm wins Wiltshire business of year award

Shrivenham-based Lawson Demolition has been named as Wiltshire Business Of The Year.

The company won the top accolade at the awards dinner at the Four Pillars Hotel at South Cerney last night when it beat the more than 100 other firms to the title.

“It was a tremendous night,” said Shamus Donald, the regional managing director of Newsquest, which publishes the Swindon Advertiser and the Wiltshire Business Magazine and which sponsored the event.

Lawson Demolition, of Shrivenham, was founded in 1991 with a staff of just three, serving Swindon and the south west.

Now the business has grown to have more than 50 staff and it is a key national player in the demolition world.

The news comes just weeks after Lawson managing director Martin Wilson was named as second vice president of the UK’s National Federation of Demolition Contractors.

Read more here.

UK contractor earns praise for its work on a challenging mill demolition project.

Wm Quinn Group has risen to the challenge of challenging demolition contract in Middleton, Manchester prior to the primary contractor building a new retail store complex.

The Former Parkfield mill and associated buildings have been on the site for over 130 years and have undergone a variety of uses. It is believed that the old mill chimney was removed some 35 years ago but remediation of the site was not to the standards expected today. The project has presented further challenges including partially buried cellars and the old buried flue of the removed chimney which travels underground across part of the site.

Using a high reach excavator and a variety of support equipment, Wm Quinn group has been praised by the client for its efficient work in a restricted area with additional unforeseen issues. The work still remains on programme and budget, for the site remediation and construction to be completed by the late summer.

“The experience skills and team abilities were somewhat challenged by this project but we have confronted and overcome these and met the ambitious timescales set by the client,” says Quinn Group site manager Jim Rawson. “I guess experience shows in the manner we have completed this project and exceeded the client’s expectations.”

This sentiment was echoed by the client’s contracts director, Trevor Hughes. “I’m delighted by the excellent work done by the Wm Quinn Group team under difficult conditions on this job. With timescales set by the retailers for construction and opening of the unit their excellent work has made our job a great deal easier,” concludes Hughes. “Already we have made a decision to use Wm Quinn Group as demolition contractor of choice on another much larger project.

Bag some demolition swag with our exclusive (and easy to enter) competition.

In addition to providing some superb presentations and an opportunity to rub shoulders with the elite of the UK demolition industry, yesterday’s NFDC Demolition Day in Manchester also allowed us to indulge in that popular journalistic past-time…collecting giveaways and freebies.

Upon arrival back at Demolition News towers last night, we discovered that we had trousered:
An Atlas Copco baseball cap, a Liebherr baseball cap, an NDTG USB thumb drive, key-rings from Sandvik Mining and Construction and PN Daly, a variety of pens from Sandhurst, PN Daly, Atlas Copco, Sandvik, the NDTG, the Institute of Demolition Engineers, a highlighter pen from Adler & Allan, a post-it notepad from European Attachments, and a lanyard/harness kinda-thing from Liebherr.

And we’re giving it all away!

In order to win this exclusive swag-bag of goodies, just answer the following, simple question:

The second NFDC Demolition Day event was held at a theatre complex named after a famous British artist. But what is the name of that theatre?

Simply send your answers to manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk and we will draw the winner from the correct entries received on Tuesday 17 May (next week).

Good luck.

Manchester event mirrors success of previous London conference.

As one wag at yesterday’s NFDC Demolition Day II conference and seminar commented: “Judging by the number of people here, there is either a lot of interest in demolition right now, or there are lots of people with nothing better to do.”

Judging by the level of audience participation, however, it was certainly the former as almost 200 delegates packed into the superb Lowry Centre in Manchester’s rejuvenated Salford Quays for an event that was a combination of legislative update and technical exposition.

We are hoping to bring you copies of some of the key presentations shortly but, in the meantime, take a look at the photo stream from the event here.

JCB equipment rids Rocester of house that had outstayed its welcome.

A wooden house which has graced the skyline at Rocester for almost 125 years has finally disappeared from view on safety grounds.

The Rookery was built around 1887 as a winter retreat for local businessman Charles Hartley, who owned a local brick and tile works, and his wife Mary. It was constructed mainly of Swedish pine which, at the time, was forecast to have a lifespan of just 25 years.

Now, 124 years later, two JCB machines have been commissioned to demolish the building. First of all a JCB 540-170 Loadall telescopic handler complete with manbasket was drafted in to enable the brick-by-brick demolition of the chimeny stacks at the building before a a 22-tonne JCB JS220 tracked excavator with selector grab attachment completed the demolition of the building, which had become a potential danger to the public.

In later years The Rookery, which was bought by JCB in 1969 and was close to the company’s World Headquarters, earned the nickname ‘The Haunted House’ from local people because of the eerie outline it cast against the sky. In the days leading up to the demolition last week, JCB set up spotlights to shine into the building to deter birds from roosting.

A JCB spokesman said: “Time really has taken its toll on The Rookery and despite regular security patrols and a fence around the property, there has also been an increasing problem with youngsters entering this dangerous structure.

“The Rookery was in such an unsafe condition that the only option was to demolish it before anyone was seriously injured. The 540-170 Loadall and the JCB JS220 excavator are more used to operating in much more arduous conditions and made light work of this particular project, with The Rookery demolition completed in two days.”

Work starts on clearing remainder of structure that has become a symbol of the earthquake tragedy.

The demolition of what remains of the CTV building, where the majority of the Christchurch earthquake’s 181 victims died, is underway.

The burned-out lift shaft of the building, which collapsed on February 22, has remained standing, becoming a symbol of the tragedy at the site where 116 lost their lives.

The remains have been analysed as part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the disaster and diggers have started work tearing it down.

Maree Lucas, whose husband Shawn Lucas, a CTV production manager, died in the building, was relieved the remains were coming down.

“It’s a reminder of the devastation. You can see the burnt-out lift shaft, and it’s not a very nice reminder,” she told The Press

She said a memorial should be constructed at the site in the future.

Read more here.

With a new man at the helm, Alliance Environmental has set its sights on the demolition business.

Alliance Environmental Group, Inc., (Alliance) recently announced the re-launch of their structural demolition division. Originally established in 2004, the division has completed hundreds of demolition projects throughout California.

“In 2010, we took a hard look at the industry, the effect the flat economy was having on business, and made some major decisions in re-tooling the division,” says Joe McLean, CEO of Alliance. “In order to remain competitive and offer the quality of service we are known for, fundamental changes needed to be made.”

“One of the major changes made involved bringing in Rick Bradley to head the division,” continued McLean. Bradley has been in the construction industry for more than 13 years and has done it all. “If you know how something is built, you have a better idea of how to demolish it,” says Bradley, (Demolition Operations Manager). “Sometimes bigger is just better,” says Bradley. “We needed to migrate from using small equipment like bob cats and backhoes, to larger equipment like Excavators. Additionally, and this is an important distinction between Alliance and a lot of other companies,” stressed Bradley, “our workers are qualified, trained and licensed to run the equipment to ensure the protection of your investment.”

Read more here.

Figures suggesting there are 4% less houses to be demolished are “too good to be true”

I recently had the dubious pleasure of flying with a low-cost airline. Upon landing a quarter of an hour late at my chosen airport, the on-board PA system played a trumpet fanfare and a recorded voice announced that this was “yet another on-time flight”. Clearly sensing that the entire aircraft were looking bemusedly at their wristwatches, a very smug flight attendant explained that any flight landing within 15 minutes of the stated arrival time was considered punctual.

I was reminded of this fact-fudging, goalpost-shifting attempt at meeting stated targets when reading today’s response from the UK charity Empty Homes to the news that the number of homes lying empty had fallen by a number that stretches credulity to its very limit.

The charity sensibly says a four per cent drop in the number of vacant dwellings in England between 2009 and 2010 is too good to be true and that some of the biggest reductions occurred in areas with large numbers of homes due for demolition under the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme. In reality, many of these properties may remain standing for years because the coalition government ended the programme early, suggest the charity.

Quite rightly, the charity goes on to say that it is not accusing the government or the local authorities of falsifying figures; they have their credibility and charitable status to protect.

Here at Demolition News Towers, we have no such qualms.

A house that is in sufficiently poor and uninhabitable condition to have been earmarked for demolition remains worthy of demolition, regardless of whether or not it fits the incumbent government’s spending plans or acronym-labelled initiative. To suggest otherwise is a bare-faced lie, and one that undermines the drive to provide much-needed additional UK housing and which further damages the fragile recovery the UK demolition industry is currently experiencing.

I am certainly not the type to engage in conspiracy theories; I am sure that the six foot two blonde woman who walks and talks exactly like Osama bin Laden is purely a coincidence or a biological anomaly. But add this latest announcement to yesterday’s news that the government is planning a £30 million lifeline to people living in blighted areas where demolition has been halted rather than investing in the actual demolition itself, and it would be easy to believe that the coalition government was on an anti-demolition purge.

Multiple Caterpillar machines helped Lawson Group tackle demolition of a former supermarket.

Lawson Group is currently working to demolish what was previously a medium sized Tesco store, terraced houses and a large pub. The three phase, £1m demolition and ground works project will see the site cleared of all but one building – a corner butchers shop.

The company mobilised a sizable part of its Caterpillar fleet purchased from Finning for the project. In total, nine items of Caterpillar plant are being used for differing jobs, including its newest fleet editions two Cat 336DL hydraulic excavators. These are accompanied by two Cat 323DL’s, a Cat 345BL UHD and a Cat 365CL excavator, all complete with a range of work tools including a Cat MP20. In addition to the core excavators a Cat 242B Skid Steer and a Cat TH350B Telehandler are providing support to the project, for both internal and external site clearance and material processing. Lawson Group also has two crushers on site, processing materials arising from the demolition.