UK’s National Demolition Training Group website is now available to view.

National Demolition Training Group, the specialist training offshoot of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, is now live at www.ndtg.org.

Designed by Paul Sawyer of Web Preference, the company behind the Demolition News website, the new site has been developed to be easier to navigate and to provide both employers and employees with easier access to the latest information on training courses, qualifications and other training-related matters.

The site will also be a key source of information on changes to legislation and grant funding that impact upon training and should be your first port-of-call when you’re seeking help and advice on demolition-related training matters.

Work underway on Premier Grandstand at Fontwell Park Racecourse.

Buckingham Group Contracting has recently commenced work on a new Premier Grandstand at Fontwell Park Racecourse and Conference Centre near Arundel, West Sussex.

The £6.5m project for Client Northern Racing, will create an architecturally prominent three-storey building with twelve private hospitality boxes, a glass fronted hospitality restaurant for 250 people and a multi-purpose hall on the ground floor with new catering and betting facilities. An external terrace area provides a mixture of seating/standing capacity for around 1200 people.

Early enabling operations currently underway require the construction of a temporary race control tower and the careful relocation of a stone/timber domed folly. Buckingham’s in-house demolition team will then undertake Asbestos Removal and Demolition, of the former 1920’s grandstand building.

Read more here.

Arkansas University seeks funds to level former nuclear site.

The University of Arkansas wants to demolish the Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor and restore the site to pastureland. The school took over the decommissioned plant 20 miles southwest of Fayetteville.

But instead of having the federal government handle the cleanup, the university wants to run the project, which it estimates will cost $20 million, and pay for it through grants from stimulus funding — a unique plan for a one-of-a-kind nuclear experiment long forgotten in the state.

Read more here.

Infamous South Padre Island “Leaning Tower” set to fall on 13 December.

A 151-unit luxury apartment building that was never occupied because it began to lean noticeably during construction is about to meet its maker; and it seems oddly appropriate that the structure will fall on 13 December.

The implosion is to be carried out by Controlled Demolition Inc. of Baltimore as close to 9am as weather permits.

The Ocean Tower was to be a 151-unit luxury project slated for a spa and other amenities. Construction began in 2006 but stopped last summer when it became obvious the tower was sinking faster than attached parking garages, causing cracks in beams and columns.

Read more here.

Advanced Explosive Demolition (AED) wins bid to shoot Crown Point Bridge.

Advanced Explosive Demolition (AED) has emerged as the winning bidder to bring down the 665 metre long Crown Point Bridge at Lake Champlain.

Deborah Sturm Rausch, a Transportation Department spokeswoman, said AED was the finalist and a contract will be confirmed today.

Rausch said preparations for the implosion have begun. “There’s not a date set in mind for the implosion yet. We will be sure to notify everyone in advance so everyone who wants to view the implosion can do so from a safe distance,” she said. “Permits need to be obtained, all sorts of things need to happen before this can come down.”

Read more here.

Gas explosion in South Manchester raises spectre of service disconnection issue.

National Federation of Demolition Contractors president David Darsey has made the issue of service disconnections one of the cornerstones of his two-year presidency; and not a moment too soon. The disconnection of water, gas and electricity services prior to demolition is one that has plagued the industry for many years; and continues to be a major issue as this latest incident in South Manchester highlights all too vividly.

According to reports in the South Manchester Reporter, an explosion which blew apart a block of luxury flats was sparked when a workman cut through a live gas pipe which he thought had been disconnected, we can reveal today.

It is understood that urgent investigations are underway to find out why developers P.J. Livesey, who are refurbishing Didsbury Gate, wrongly believed there was no gas in the pipes.

The company said the building had been bought from the NHS ‘on the understanding it had been safely decommissioned with all previous services stopped’. None of the occupied flats had connected gas supplies.

But a spokesman for the National Grid said P.J. Livesey had not checked with them whether there were active pipes in the building – in breach of normal protocol. “We believe the incident was caused by damage to a live gas pipe on the site,” said the spokesman.

Click here for more details or see the video below.

Around 24 demolition contractors attend pre-bid meeting on Coca Cola bottling plant.

It is a story that will gladden the hearts of dentists across the land; the Coca Cola bottling plant in Muncie will be coming down early in the New Year and local demolition contractors are queuing to be the ones to pop the cap.

According to Indiana news source Starpress.com, nearly two dozen demolition contractors recently attended a pre-bid conference at the former Coca-Cola bottling plant, a burned-out, trash-filled brick eyesore. Demolition bids will be opened on 16 December with “deconstruction” of the building scheduled to begin 8 January and end within seven weeks.

Phil Huber, the owner of the two-story building, which stands near the BMH Open Door Health Center, the Liberty Bowl bowling alley and Indiana-American Water Co.’s water tower, has been ordered by the city’s unsafe building hearing authority to tear it down.

The authority has determined that the 1,950 square metre structure “has been ransacked in every way”, is unsafe, a fire hazard, a health hazard and a public nuisance.

Read more here.

The discussion over the suggested High Reach Register is continuing in the Forum.

Every once in a while, you wish you’d learned to keep your big, fat mouth shut. Late last week, I idly pondered the idea of the demolition industry adopting the basic concept of the UK’s Tower Crane Register to keep track of high reach excavators and to ensure they these highly specialised machines were inspected and maintained regularly and correctly.

The comments on the original article tell only part of the story, as the telephone at Demolition News Towers has barely stopped ringing with messages of support and cries of “are you out of your tiny mind” split roughly 50:50, while our email server is close to meltdown for much the same reason.

So, to allow everyone to have their say in an open and transparent way, we have moved the debate over to the new Demolition News Forum. You can see the discussion by clicking here although, if you haven’t been around for the past few days, you might want to read the original article here before you make your comment.

We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

High-profile, anti-demolition protests force Chinese officials to rethink forced demolition.

China’s State Council is moving to revise the “Regulation on Urban Housing Demolition” and the legislative research of the work has started, China Daily reports.

The decision follows two recent cases of forced demolitions that raised attention of the protection of citizens’ rights and conflict resolution in China. On 13 November, Chengdu local government’s forcible demolition of a private building led to the suicide of one of the owners, Tang Fuzhen, who poured gasoline and set fire on herself. The house stands in the way of a district government’s project to link two roads. Later in the month, a woman in the Minhang district of Shanghai threw self-made petrol bombs at a demolition crew preparing to destroy her house, which is the site of a transportation hub for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

Read more here.

Demolition work has started on a $750 million residential project in Oklahoma.

Construction is under way on a massive lakefront redevelopment at Lake Texoma near Kingston, Oklahoma. Demolition of the old lodge and several nearby buildings began on Friday and is expected to take between four and six months.

Pointe Vista at Lake Texoma will be a master-planned residential lake community featuring a variety of small to large lakefront properties and luxury resort amenities, including a conference center, hotel, golf courses, and a marina.

Read more here.