Council presses ahead with demolition of former ICI HQ despite calls for refurbishment

A council is pressing on with the demolition of a 50-year-old derelict office block despite a legal wrangle.

Billingham House, the former ICI headquarters, in Belasis Avenue, has been made an eyesore by vandals and arsonists over the years.

Its owner Bizzy B management wants to refurbish the building and has applied for a judicial review. But Stockton Council said demolition preparatory work is well underway and it is carrying on with its plans.

Richard Poundford, head of economic development and regeneration for Stockton Council, said he was confident the council would win a judicial review. He said: “We’ve done a lot of preparatory work for the demolition and have identified further traces of asbestos in the building which we need to sort out. We are intent on carrying on with the demolition which is the most effective solution to solve the problem for the people of Billingham. This has been a lengthy saga and we have done everything in our power to bring it to a conclusion that would offer certainty to local people.”

Read more here.

Another weekend, another spectacular Advanced Explosive Demolition implosion.

On Saturday 22 January, crews from Advanced Explosive Demolition imploded Luminant’s old River Crest Power Plant boiler – the final major step in demolishing the retired natural gas-fueled power plant.

“It served the needs of the residents here in northeast Texas for many, many years,” said Scott Diermann, director of gas plant operations for Luminant. “As we’ve added newer, more efficient capacity, this unit became less and less economical to run.”

After 50 years of operation, the plant was retired and plans ultimately made to dismantle it. Two months leading up to the implosion, crews worked to break down River Crest piece by piece, with the final two weeks devoted to setting up for the last step of the demolition.

“We have five cuts to each one of the legs (of the boiler) and then five other charges that kick those legs out from under,” explained Eddie Siebert, vice president of Plant Recovery Company.

Read more here or watch the video below:

Exclusive time-lapse video captures dismantling of listed chimney in London.

Ever wondered how you make a chimney vanish in under a minute without the use of explosives of David Blaine-esque illusion?

Well Squibb Group, one of the UK’s largest demolition companies, has the answer in this exclusive video shot at a Thames Water facility in Beckton in the London Borough of Newham.

Demolition Ball 2 in aid of the Princes Trust.

It’s Friday afternoon (in the UK at least); the phones have gone quiet; the emails are slowing down; and the only sound is one of gentle dog snoring from this corner of Demolition News Towers. What better time for a spot of glitter ball frivolity?

We’ve just heard word of a charitable event that is scheduled to take place in Newcastle on 12 March 2011; and, given the theme and the fact that it’s in aid of the Prince’s Trust, we thought we’d give it a mention.

The event is organised and hosted by a construction company – Meldrum Construction Services – but will follow a demolition them, as the company’s Margaret Dowe explains. “There is an ice breaker hit and miss game that involves videos of demolitions; we bring along hi viz vests and hard hats for the games that include a human hamster ball that knocks down inflatable pins bearing pictures of what we deem ‘ugly’ buildings.”

Please click here for further information and ticket enquiries.

DemolitionNews.com receives its runner-up prize.

We promise this is the last time we’ll mention; well, at least until about this time next year.

As many will know, we were nominated in the “Best Old Media/New Media” category of the Be2Awards that took place earlier this week. We left empty-handed but, much to our astonishment, it turns out that we actually came second in a hotly-contested category that also included big-hitters like Construction News and Construction Enquirer.

And the good people behind the awards have just sent us our official runner-up badge which we will wear with pride.

Three-year old company bags contract to broker metal from Kennedy Space Center.

Pasco Iron & Metal and its in-house brokerage company, Green Tree Recycling, has successfully brokered more than 4,000 gross tons of metal from Florida’s largest-ever and most historic demolition project: The dismantling of Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39B, which helped to launch 53 space shuttle missions.

Pasco Iron & Metal and Green Tree Recycling agreed to purchase all scrap metal from the extensive dismantling task, which is being overseen by LVI Environmental Services, Inc. The material, which filled more than 400 truckloads, is being shipped directly from the job site in Cape Canaveral to mills for processing.

The large job is significant given that Pasco Iron & Metal and Green Tree Recycling have only been in operation since 2008 and 2007, respectively. “We’re very pleased to have played such a large role in this historic project,” said Pasco Iron & Metal and Green Tree Recycling CEO Matthew Goldman. “Unlike other scrap metal processors, our in-house brokerage services allow us to work with slimmer margins and to be more on top of unfolding markets.”

Read more here.

Safedem gets under the skin of massive Rosyth fuel bunker.

Former demolition contractor of the year Safedem is stepping up its attack on a former naval fuel bunker at Rosyth in Scotland.

To date, Safedem has systematically blasted its way through 8.4 metres thick of bombproof concrete roof, and demolished by explosives the six metre thick external walls, leaving 3.6 hectares acres of concrete columns that now resemble the Parthenon in Athens.

Each of the 3,780 columns is 1.2 metres in diameter and 16 metres tall. A 30 tonne excavator equipped with a hydraulic breaker is currently positioned on the last layer roof and is breaking away the remaining 900 mm thick slab to leave the columns free standing.

A new Liebherr 974 purchased specifically for this challenging contract and factory-modified to Safedem specifications is scheduled to arrive on site shortly where it will be used to fold the columns over and lay them out at ground level for processing.

You can view more photos from this remarkable contract on the DemolitionNews Facebook Fan Page.

Shy, retiring Simone Bruni now has her own radio show!

Well, not content with starring appearances at last year’s Demolition Awards and here on DemolitionNews.com, Simone is taking her anti-blight message to the airwaves with her own radio show on WGSO.

We have tried (and failed) to embed the recording of her first show here. So if you’d like to hear Simone’s finest Creole drawl with a spot of the Doobie Brothers thrown in for good measure, please click here.

The fact that this video is billed as “Jenga Building Demolition” says it all.

Back in August 2009, we brought you a video of a Turkish demolition contract gone awry in which a building somehow managed to roll onto its roof. So when we saw the words “Jenga Building Demolition” alongside “Turkish demolition fail”, we pretty much knew what to expect.

Geography and arguments about whether Turkey is in Europe or Asia aside, do health and safety and dust control regulations not exist there?

Jenga Building Demolition – Watch more Funny Videos

Mohave blast date moved to March.

The implosion of the 152 metre (500-foot) tall Mohave Generating Station stack that was tentatively scheduled for this month has been moved back to March, according to Gil Alexander, spokesman for Southern California Edison (SCE), the plant’s majority owner. Initial plans were to demolish the stack in February.

The date for the implosion has not been set, Alexander stated in an e-mail to the Mohave Valley Daily News. The 1,580-megawatt facility closed down at the end of 2005 and a decommissioning process was launched in 2009.

Visible for miles, the stack is equivalent to a 41-story building and is taller than any building in Arizona.

Read more here.