Australian officials forced to apologise over enforced home demolitions.

John Brumby, premier of Victoria, has apologised to residents who were not told their houses would be demolished to make way for the State Government’s transport plan. Up to 50 homes in Footscray and Sunshine will have to be demolished as part of the regional rail upgrade.

Brumby released the details at a business luncheon on Monday, but some residents did not learn about the plan until told by journalists.

“I’m sorrry that those people weren’t contacted,” he said. “They should have been, that’s why we moved the event. We moved the event so that people could be contacted and given that information before being advised by the media.”

Read more here.

Engineers from Controlled Demolition Inc. complete first stage of bridge implosion.

As we reported earlier today, Pennsylvania Turnpike officials and engineers from Controlled Demolition Inc. used an explosion to raze a recently replaced bridge over the Allegheny River in Allegheny County just a few minutes ago.

Thanks to the good people at Controlled Demolition Inc., the team behind this implosion, you can now see the blast in all its glory by clicking here.

Contractor storms out of city council meeting over “blight fight” fund allocation.

A City Council meeting grew tense Monday when a local businessman fighting for a piece of $2 million in blight fight contracts stormed out of the room while shouting expletives.

The council approved the blanket demolition contract that seven companies will share over the next year. The decision came on the heels of a number of contractors complaining to the council about their exclusion from that list.

One of those with grievances was James W. Owens, owner of Saginaw’s Owens Contracting Services, Inc.
He complained the city disqualified his business from the bidding because officials claimed he owed City Hall money. “I don’t owe the city nothing,” Owens said. “If I do, prove it.”

When Saginaw Development Director Odail Thorns addressed the issue and said the city had mailed out information about unpaid bills, Owens rose quickly from his seat near the center of the room, barked expletives within two feet of Thorns, turned and stormed out of the council chambers while continuing to swear.

Police Chief Gerald H. Cliff also rose from his seat in the back of the room but sat back down when Owens exited.

Three contractors at the meeting expressed frustration at being left out of the contract. Some had issues with a point system City Hall used to rank 12 bidding companies. Five of the businesses, including Owens’ company, were disqualified for various reasons.

Read more here.

Wakefield-based contractor latest to fall victim to recession.

Controlled Group, the multi-disciplined, Yorkshire-based contractor, has slipped into administration. According to our sources, the company made the official announcement on Friday of last week but no official statement is available at this time.

Furthermore, while it is believed that the company has appointed a firm of administrators, no details are currently available.

We will, of course, be following this one with considerable interest and will bring you further news as it breaks.

59 year old bridge is scheduled for implosion later today.

The Allegheny River Bridge is set to be demolished Tuesday morning after standing over Harmar Township since 1951.

A lot of the removal work has actually been done ahead of time. “All the deck for the whole length of the bridge has been removed. It’s 23-hundred feet long, so it was quite a bit of work to remove all the deck,” said Chuck Parish, project manager with Walsh Construction.

“It’s a good bit of work-up ahead of time, but if everything goes smoothly, it should be minimal impact to the public and to traffic.”

The bridge is being replaced by twin spans, each nearly a half-mile long, costing more than $193 million dollars.

The Turnpike Commission and KDKA will be broadcasting the implosion live on their respective websites to reduce spectator numbers and we hope to bring you footage of the implosion later today. In the meantime, please click here to view the pre-blast video and to read more.

Work stops on famous Plymouth landmark demolition pending further investigation.

The demolition of the Hoe Centre in Plymouth has been halted on the grounds of public safety.

The University of Plymouth’s decision to knock down the building in Notte Street has ignited a storm of protest.

Now, in an e-mail passed to local newspaper The Herald, Jonathan Harris, an inspector for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), wrote on Friday: “I attended the site today and stopped demolition work on the grounds of public safety being compromised by the limited exclusion zone. I am meeting with representatives from the demolition contractor on Monday to discuss the way forward.”

The HSE was apparently alerted to the danger by a Plymouth City Council officer, who sent photographs of the site.

Read more here.

Three high-profile incidents in three weeks casts the Canadian demolition in poor light.

As anyone that has ever had their ill-advised attempts at disco dancing broadcast to a watching world will testify, YouTube is an unforgiving medium. And if proof of that were needed, there are at least two Canadian demolition companies that might have preferred NOT to have appeared on the web recently.

But while three separate incidents (two in Vancouver, another in Edmonton) do not a trend make, three high-profile accidents in as many weeks has certainly cast the Canadian demolition sector in a very unpleasant light. And thanks to the global reach of services like YouTube ensures that the fallout from such high profile accidents is not limited merely to the city, state or country in which they occurred.

However, while the companies in question were undoubtedly unfortunate to have their worst practice captured on film, we can’t help wondering if these three incidents (and let’s not forget that the first two happened just minutes apart) are the sign of a deeper problem in the country’s demolition and dismantling industry.

Now we’re not suggesting that all of the blame resides with the contractors (although dumping three buildings or parts thereof in the streets does not look good on anyone’s records). How was work on both contracts allowed to progress while the busy street adjacent remained open to car and pedestrian traffic? Why did the company behind the Vancouver contract not have a written safety plan?

Have Your Say: We’d love to get your thoughts on this recent spate of Canadian accidents and what they say about the current state of the country#s demolition sector. So please click here and let us have your thoughts.

Eureka Mill demolition ongoing despite asbestos concerns.

A company ignored several government warnings to postpone tearing down an abandoned Chester County textile mill until all asbestos was properly located and removed, according to state documents.

A July 6 letter from South Carolina’s top environmental agency to Chester County officials says demolition continues at several buildings on the Eureka Mill property just outside Chester even though PJW Enterprises had not properly determined the location of asbestos-contaminated materials.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control ordered the company to stop on six occasions since October, the letter says. Some of the debris collected from the mill contained an asbestos concentration of 30 percent, according to the letter. Any material with an asbestos concentration higher than 1 percent falls under state removal rules.

“We are looking at the potential for taking some type of enforcement action,” DHEC spokesman Thom Berry said.

Read more here.

Another Canadian contract, another building winds up in the street.

Debris from a building in the midst of being demolished collapsed on Sunday, covering the eastbound lanes of a downtown Edmonton thoroughfare.

No injuries have been reported and police were clearing people from the scene late Sunday afternoon.

The collapse crushed the plywood retaining wall wrapped around the building and covered a backhoe with rubble.

Katie Orr, an employee at the Second Cup across the street from the scene, witnessed the collapse Sunday.

“It just went the wrong way,” Orr said. “Luckily it was a pretty slow time and no one was hurt.”

Orr said the collapsed building also knocked over a tree and partially tipped over a street light.

The Mayfair, a drab, five-storey structure built in 1944, is being removed by ProCura Real Estate to make way for a new twin-tower apartment complex expected to house about 900 residents.

Read more here.

Double near-miss contractor accused of taking more safety shortcuts.

The company responsible for a demolition gone wrong in downtown Vancouver last month started up work again Friday, but was asked to stop once more within hours.

In a report released Thursday, the city found that Global Excavating and Demolition didn’t have a written safety plan or final clearance from building inspectors before knocking down the former home of the William Davis Centre for Acting on June 10.

At the demolition site Friday, CTV News heard a warning to the crew as they were allowed to resume work for the first time since that day. “We took a bunch of shortcuts this morning. You see these corners — they’ve got to be covered with something to keep them from cutting the rope. That’s a bust if we get caught,” one member of the crew cautioned workers.

But a man who said he was the site engineer said the company wasn’t taking any shortcuts.

“I haven’t heard that kind of thing; no one is planning to take any shortcuts,” he said.

When CTV News called Global’s head office, a company representative said he didn’t have time to talk.

James Schouw, president of the development company looking after the site, insists that Global is an experienced and reputable contractor that has completed 139 jobs in Metro Vancouver, including 51 in municipal Vancouver.

Crews know they are being scrutinized, Schouw said, and are working to avoid even common demolition mishaps.

“The kind of mistakes and little slip-ups that can happen on a regular basis clearly will not be tolerated at all on this site,” he said. “There’s just no room to make another mistake.”

Friday afternoon, the company was told to stop work by city inspectors because it didn’t have a necessary extension to a zone permit. The issue was resolved shortly after, and crews were back at work on Saturday morning.

Vancouver Coun. Suzanne Anton said the city should investigate the possibility of “shortcuts” being taken on site. “It doesn’t reflect well, if that’s what was said, on the contractor or the city’s oversight processes,” she said.

Read the full story here.