World-famous film studios could have stake driven through its heart.

Long before the slasher movies and torture porn that now constitutes movie horror, one name stood severed head and bare shoulders above the rest: Hammer. In its 60-year history, Hammer’s Bray Studios were the spiritual home of the British horror movie industry, the cradle from which cult classics as The Mummy, The Curse of Frankenstein and – most famous of all – the Dracula series starring Christopher Lee in the titular role, were torn.

But it now appears that the studios days are numbered, demolition crews bringing its illustrious career to an end as assuredly as van Helsing’s stake through the Transylvanian Count’s cold, black heart.

Earlier this month, the Maidenhead Advertiser reported that current owners the Bray Management Company says the the operation is struggling to keep up with technological advancements. A planning application was recently submitted to the Royal Borough for repairs to Grade II listed Down Place, the site’s central building. The application notes that the studios, formerly used to provide offices and facilities in connection with the film business, have been hit hard by the economic downturn and are no longer a viable business – and hinted at plans to turn the historic site into housing.

The plans to level the site for housing came to light in an application to replace the roof and windows of Down Place which were discussed and approved at a Bray Parish Council meeting earlier this month. The documents discussed revealed a further application is likely for extensive work to convert the site into housing.

Fans of Hammer Films and British film history have moved swiftly to highlight the threat, starting a Facebook campaign group, blog and Twitter to raise awareness about the studios’ plight.

Read the full story here.

Steel plant implosion takes officials by surprise.

An implosion last Sunday morning at the former McLouth Steel plant in Trenton leveled an old lime storage building. The 41 metre (134-foot-tall) building, built in the late 1960s, came down in about 30 seconds, said Dan Hellickson, a project manager for Detroit Steel Co., which now owns the former McLouth Steel.

However, the planned demolition appears to have taken city officials by surprise. Reports suggest that they knew the building would be coming down but were surprised it actually was last Sunday, said William Hogan, city engineer.

The demolition company applied for the permit April 1. It was approved April 5, but the company never picked it up, Hogan said.

The building was demolished for several reasons, Hellickson said. It was no longer necessary at the facility, to clean up the skyline, to generate revenue through scrapping materials and to make the site more attractive to bring in business.

Read more here.

Demolition of former Eagle Crusher buildings prompts EPA intervention.

Asbestos in rubble from demolished Eagle Crusher buildings and a lack of proper paperwork prompted the Ohio EPA to halt cleanup at the South Market Street site.

Recycling Creations from Marion made progress with cleanup since owner Eric Keith was cited and fined in November, but residents and city officials aren’t satisfied.

The debris came from three buildings. The one owned by Eagle Crusher had been damaged by fire.

Dina Pierce from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Wednesday that two months ago an inspector found asbestos in the rubble and told Recycle Creations to stop cleanup.

In March, violation notices were mailed to Recycling Creations and Eagle Crusher.

Pierce said Eagle Crusher did not file a notification of intent for demolition of the fire-damaged building, and Recycling Creations demolished a building without an asbestos survey.

State law requires an asbestos survey to be done before any demolition of commercial or multiple residential properties. Ten days before demolition, a company must file a notification of intent with the Ohio EPA. The letter outlines the project, location and potential for any airborne asbestos.

Read the full story here.

US Coast Guard is preparing to demolish Alaska’s tallest structure.

Beginning Sunday, the Coast Guard will establish a safety zone around the 411 metre (1,350-foot) Long Range Aids to Navigation tower in Port Clarence.

The zone include all waters within a two-mile radius of the tower that is the tallest of its kind in the U.S., but in poor shape.

Demolition is scheduled for sometime between Sunday and Friday, depending on the conditions.

Read more here.

Two Glasgow tower blocks set to be demolished next year in simultaneous blast.

Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) plans to bring down the two blocks on the site at the same time to minimise disruption to the local community.

Safedem Ltd, which had the demolition contract for the first block, recently won the contract to carry out demolition work on the second block – resulting in plans to bring down the two simultaneously.

Local residents would have faced two sets of road and rail closures, as well as evacuations from their homes, if the demolitions had taken part separately.

Jim Sneddon, GHA’s Executive Director of Regeneration, said: “We are always very mindful about the disruption a demolition causes to the wider community. “When we appointed Safedem as the contractor for the second block at Red Road we felt it made sense to now consider doing the two blocks at once.

William Sinclair, managing director of Safedem, recently named Demolition Company of the Year and Explosive Demolition Company of the Year, said: “We have been working with GHA and the local community for just over a year now and have carried out continual reviews to minimise the impact of our operations upon local residents and businesses.

“Now that we are involved with the demolition of this next building, it didn’t make sense to go ahead and demolish the first building then, a few months later, demolish the next building. It does, however, make sense to have one blowdown demolition operation bringing both buildings down at the same time to minimise the impact on the community. It means there will be less upheaval having only one evacuation for local residents and businesses instead of two.”

Read the full story here.

Workwear manufacturers finally realise that women have feet too.

OK. If it was up to me, this site would be an endless procession of big diggers and hot ladies in hard hats. But, as well as trying to be a little more politically correct, I am occasionally badgered by a certain woman who shall remain nameless (Nichola Elvy at Building Health) about the raw deal that women get in the demolition business.

When she’s not concerning herself with the health of UK demolition workers, Nichola’s bothering me about the fact that site footwear is rarely designed with women in mind, or that it’s hard to accessorize a high visibility yellow vest (OK, I made up that last one).

However, Nichola today called to let us know that she’s just invested in a pair of these, and wanted us to let our other demolition ladies know that you no longer have to dress like a large man in order to satisfy modern site safety rules.

“I have just ordered the purple lace-ups from the Women’s Engineering Society but will probably buy the purple riggers for winter (after all you can’t have too many purple suede boots can you!) They aren’t Jimmy Choos (whatever they are) but, hey, they are pretty damn good,” Nichola says. “They’re not the cheapest but definitely the best I have ever seen and me and my girls will never have to wear men’s boots again!

But men, please rest assured, the diggers and hot ladies will be back soon…..sorry Nichola…..the diggers will be back soon!

Komatsu has unveiled a new 40 tonne class high reach; see it in action here.

Those that braved the Icelandic volcano ash cloud to make the trek to Munich for the Bauma exhibition were treated to a number of exciting new demolition machine launches.

For those that were put off by the thought of traveling across Europe with no immediate certainty of return, or those that made it only as far as the first Bavarian beer tent and didn’t get to see the machines, Komatsu has alerted us to a video that shows its brand new PC290NLC high reach machine in action

Two arrested after demolition waste almost kills driver.

I must admit that, here in Europe, we can have a self-righteous attitude to demolition waste recycling. It is true that many European countries have exceptionally stringent regulations governing the disposal of construction and demolition waste. It is also true that some European demolition contractors achieve world-beating levels of recycling.

But, every once in a while, a story comes along that bursts our sanctimonious bubble.

German police have set up a homicide task force following an incident yesterday in which a car driver was almost killed when two youths dumped demolition waste from a bridge over Hamburg’s A1 autobahn.

Thankfully, the 41-year old car driver managed to steer his Renault Laguna to the emergency lane; and while the falling rubble smashed his car’s windscreen, he escaped with minor cuts. However, it could have been considerably worse.

According to initial police reports, two more bucket-loads of rubble were found at the scene and were probably destined to be dumped onto the busy motorway below.

English speakers can read a condensed version of the story here. German speakers can get the full story here.

Video gets up close with high reach machines demolishing Australian hospital.

We don’t get a huge amount of content from the “Land Down Under” (although this is something we’re looking to rectify). So, when we do, it’s extremely welcome.

Case in point this new video from Rosenlund Demolition, the contractor responsible for demolishing the Princess Alexander Hospital in Brisbane. In addition to some nice high reach footage, the film also gets a close look at the attachments at work and uses some nifty split-screen effects. Enjoy.

Rosenlund Demolition – Princess Alexander High Reach Demolition from RosenlundDemolition on Vimeo.

Get the latest demolition news and views on your hand-held device of choice.

Demolition News is still on a growth curve. We’re a few months away from celebrating our second birthday, and we’re still learning. As a result, we play very close attention to the way in which you, our readers and subscribers, interact with this website. We monitor obvious things like daily traffic stats, the number of time our This Week in Demolition email newsletter is read, and the number of times the ads of our sponsors are clicked. But we also monitor less obvious but no less meaningful things like who is our biggest referrer of traffic (Twitter), which search engine do most of our new readers use to find us (Google), and which system are readers using to access the site.

And it is here that the balance is shifting.

When we first started out, Internet Explorer was the preferred option of more than 70% of our readers, followed in distant second by Firefox. However, in recent months, both Internet Explorer and Firefox have lost ground to the new kid on the block – the all-conquering iPhone. With more than 30 million iPhones in circulation and a bewildering 100,000 individual “apps” available or awaiting approval, the device has become the Internet browsing device of choice for millions. And with the launch of the new Apple iPad, the number of readers viewing websites like ours on small, hand-held devices is only going to increase.

As a self-confessed iPhone addict myself, I understand the attraction of being able to browse the latest news while you’re on the train, between meetings or – heaven forbid – in the bathroom. But I am also aware that the way in which our website was originally designed was, perhaps, not the best format for those reading on a small screen on a moving train.

Which is why we have today launched the iPhone version of Demolition News.

From now on, when you visit the site from your iPhone, you will be presented with a neater, more stripped-down and faster-loading version of the site with the latest news stories arranged in chronological order to allow you to see what’s been added since your last visit.

If you’re an irregular or occasional Demolition News reader, you need do no more, other than (perhaps) store demolitionnews.com to your favourites.

However, if like an increasing number of demolition professionals you are calling in daily (and believe us, we have the stats to prove that many of you do) then you can take this a stage further. When you open demolitionnews.com on your iPhone, you will see a large + symbol at the foot of the screen – If you hit that, you can add Demolition News to your device’s Home Screen, ensuring that you’re never more than a finger gesture (that’s a click to the uninitiated) from your up-to-the-minute fix of demolition news, views and insight.

We hope you like this latest innovation and look forward to receiving your comments in due course. And hey, if you hit the down arrow symbol to the right of the Demolition News banner on the iPhone app, you can email us direct.

We look forward to hearing from you.