Council refutes claims that estate demolition was a charade to secure funding.

The deputy leader of London’s Greenwich council has been forced to respond to claims that the partial demolition of the Ferrier Estate was a “charade to secure development funding”. Laying the blame for delays firmly at the door of the government, councillor Peter Brooks said:

“We have had a specific deadline imposed on us by the Government to start work on an extra care scheme that will provide housing and support for 170 households aged 55 and over. The Government has threatened to withdraw a £21m grant for this scheme if work does not begin by the end of March 2011. As a result of the Government’s refusal to roll this grant into next year, we have had to issue legal Notices to a number of remaining tenants. Every tenant will be given at least two offers suitable for their needs – with repossession only to be used as a very last resort.”

The council admit that it will lose £21 million in government funding if residents are not evicted and development has not begun by March next year.

Large sections of the Ferrier were left as partial ruins earlier this year with little apparent rebuilding taking place since. The leader of Greenwich Conservatives Spencer Drury claims that these partial demolitions are merely a “charade” to suggest that work is taking place where it is not:

“The Labour Council is now so far behind schedule it is hurrying through the eviction of tenants before the end of the financial year to ensure government funding remains in place. Labour has mishandled this process from the very beginning and now we find that the demolition appears to be simply a charade to suggest work has started when in fact no rebuilding is taking place.”

Read the full story here.

Armac underway with delicate dismantling in turbine hall.

Armac Group is currently deconstructing the top four floors of the Alstom Power Building in Stafford above the live Turbine Hall. The Turbine Hall must remain fully operational as it contains a 350 tonne capacity overhead crane, the largest of its kind in Europe.

Armac is using a 70 tonne crawler to service the dismantling from the upper floors to ground level but have also utilised a 3 tonne mini crawler crane at upper floor level to provide additional hook time for the steel dismantling works.

”The problem with using the main 70 tonne crawler is that every lift would have been a blind lift so it can be slow to centre the hook using radios. With the use of the 3t mini crawler we can quickly dismantle the steel frame with top burners and rest cuts and then lower several steel sections at a time to ground level with the large crawler,” says contracts director Noel McLean. “The crane can also pick and carry the sections to a central loading out point. We assessed the permissible floor loadings and designed the lift plan around the use of the 3 tonne crawler with great success. We have removed an entire floor of steel in two days using two top burners and the mini crawler, literally halving the original programme time for each floor”.

Armac is due to complete the £400k Dismantling Scheme by mid November.

Prince Charles pays tribute to Ian Wooldridge after helicopter tragedy

The boss of Surrey demolition contractor Wooldridge Group was one of three men killed when their helicopter crashed in the Mourne Mountains in Co Down at the weekend, reports leading construction news resource, ConstructionEnquirer.

Ian Wooldridge, 52, died when a private helicopter came down near Leitrim Lodge in Carcullion, outside Hilltown.

The construction boss was a friend of the Royal family and had been traveling with a close polo friend of Prince Charles.

Wooldridge was a member of the Guard’s polo club in Windsor and was linked with Harcourt Developments and the regeneration of the Titanic Quarter in Belfast’s docklands.

He ran the £40m turnover Surrey-based Wooldridge Group with his brother Graham. The firm, a member of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, employs around 300 and runs a fleet of more than 400 machines.

Read more here.

2002 Lambeau Field skybox accident went under radar.

A little-known accident during the Lambeau Field renovation in 2002 caused significant damage to the stadium and resulted in a court fight that continued until years later.

Repair costs at the home of the Green Bay Packers topped more than $1 million, and a taxpayer-funded insurance plan filed suit to avoid getting stuck with $200,000 of the repair bill.

Officials at the state-operated Local Government Property Insurance Fund will not disclose how they ended the legal squabble with construction contractor Spirtas Wrecking Co. — a battle resolved last year through an out-of-court settlement.

Green Bay city records show that Spirtas crews caused damage to city-owned Lambeau Field while demolishing and removing the stadium’s old skyboxes in February 2002.

According to records at City Hall and in the court case, crews accidentally dropped demolition materials in the stadium’s bowl, damaging the arena’s structural steel, concrete foundation and bleacher seats.

Read more here.

Eric Kelly oversees Athens implosion.

A historical building in the centre of Athens was destroyed in 14 seconds on Sunday. The Navy Veterans Fund building was demolished on in a controlled explosion.

Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis decided the building must go so as to create a new square covering 1,300 sq meters in an area of the city, where crime and squalor have become rife over the last few years.

The derelict building was abandoned from the’80s and was bought by the municipality of Athens as part of a programme aimed at improving the city centre.

Key ruling due in Ground Zero tower fire case

The three men charged in the deaths of two firefighters in a blaze at a contaminated, condemned ground zero skyscraper say they’re scapegoats. Prosecutors say the men are to blame for disregarding and covering up a major safety hazard.

A judge was expected to rule Friday on whether to toss out manslaughter and other charges against Mitchel Alvo, Salvatore DePaola and Jeffrey Melofchik. They are the only people facing criminal charges after a fire that led city officials to acknowledge oversight mistakes.

Alvo, 58, DePaola, 56, Melofchik, 48, and the John Galt Corp., which was helping to take down the former Deutsche Bank building, have pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the men could face up to 15 years in prison.

The building — just across the street from the World Trade Center’s south tower — was heavily damaged and filled with toxic debris when the tower collapsed into it on Sept. 11, 2001. A laborious process of dismantling the now government-owned building has taken years.

On Aug. 18, 2007, a construction worker’s careless smoking sparked a fire that tore through several stories of the building.

Firefighters contended with a roster of hazards, including deactivated sprinklers, blocked stairwells, an air system that was supposed to control toxins but ended up concentrating smoke, and a break in a crucial firefighting water pipe called a standpipe.

With the standpipe severed, it took 67 minutes for the firefighters to get water by other means to fight the blaze.

Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino became trapped on the burning 14th floor. They died of smoke inhalation after their oxygen tanks ran out.

Read the full story here.

UK Government launches Plasterboard Sustainability Action Plan.

Yesterday saw the official launch of the Government’s new Plasterboard Sustainability Action Plan.

To coincide with the launch, Parliamentary Under-Secretary Lord Henley said: “The plasterboard industry has shown a great willingness over the last few years to develop voluntary commitments to reduce the impact of plasterboard manufacturing and waste. As a widely used construction product, it is crucial to build upon these successes and further improve the sustainability of this product throughout its life-cycle and supply chain.

Sustained collaboration across the plasterboard industry, with Government, has led to this robust Action Plan to further improve the social and environmental impacts of plasterboard, with the establishment of the Plasterboard Sustainability Partnership providing a strong and co-ordinated means of implementation.

Many improvement measures have been agreed, ranging from safer handling of plasterboards to reducing waste through design and training of specialist contractors.

This Action Plan will help us achieve the overarching objective of leading the world in sustainable construction, production and consumption, as stated in the joint industry and Government Strategy for Sustainable Construction.

Many of the actions are already underway; demonstrating a strong commitment across the Plasterboard Sustainability Par tnership to ensure the Action Plan is delivered. I look forward to seeing significant progress, catalysed through this Action Plan, and the Plasterboard Sustainability Partnership over the coming years.”

Download your free copy of the Action Plan here.

Caterpillar to sell used equipment via Mascus

Construction and demolition equipment giant Caterpillar has signed a co-operation agreement with Mascus (www.mascus.co.uk), a prominent online market-place for used equipment.

Caterpillar has been using the internet as an important communication channel for many years, and understands the importance of this media for the future. In addition to the main portal www.cat.com, Cat was also one of the first manufacturers in the world to build a used equipment website (www.catused.com) to help customers locate and review quality used equipment available for sale from Cat dealers around the world.

To strengthen Cat’s used equipment sales, a partnership has been formed with Mascus www.mascus.co.uk, a leading online market place for used equipment. Used equipment inventory from Cat dealers will be found on Mascus, increasing the visibility on the web.

For entirely selfish reasons, this is great news for DemolitionNews.com too since Mascus provides our used equipment coverage and has long been a supporter of our activities.

Read more here.

Stockton eyesore building to be demolished

A 50-year-old derelict office block on Teesside which has been vandalised over the years is to be demolished.

After years of legal wrangling, Stockton Council is to bulldoze Billingham House and will charge the cost to its owner Bizzy B Management.

The former ICI headquarters, in Belasis Avenue, has been attacked by arsonists and vandals over the years and is considered an eyesore by locals.

A council spokesman said: “The Council has been working with Bizzy B Management Ltd for a number of years and has previously taken legal action following repeated concerns from members of the public about the state of the building.

It will be pulled down in the New Year when a contractor has been found.

Read more here.

A look back to explosive demolition in the “good ol’ days”

Based upon the reaction we received following the reproduction of an old edition of the Demolition & Dismantling magazine (and there are more editions to come), there is a great appetite out there for demolition nostalgia.

Those that were lucky enough to attend the recent Institute of Demolition Engineers Autumn conference in London will know that vice-president and events co-ordinator John Woodward had organised a look back at an explosive demolition project from the 1970s (1977 to be precise). The presentation came in the shape of a video salvaged from obscurity by demolition consultant Bruce Atkinson FIDE of DemConsult.

Bruce takes up the story:

The following film is a non-technical home movie of a single day operation to demolish a large block of flats in Birkenhead. It takes place in 1977 at a time when the current reams of regulations and legislation now governing the industry, and captures the atmosphere of the time with long hair, flared trousers, wide lapels.
This was also a time when political correctness had not yet been invented, and the industry inhabited a number of larger than life characters. There were no mobile phones, no site phones, no site audits, method statements, risk assessments, design calculations or drawings. This was a time when fuel and oxygen was ordered via the nearest pay phone and wages were collected from the local Post Office at the end of the week.

The film shows a typical demolition operation of its day, covering a whole range of emotions: anticipation; panic, tension; and finally relief.

Having now watched the film a few times, we’re certainly relieved that blasting practices and health and safety have improved in the past three decades; and we’re even more relieved that those horrendous moustaches were consigned to the dark corners of fashion history. Enjoy.

Day Trip to Birkenhead from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.