Safedem will get the plaudits; but another company has been influential at Red Road.
When three of the tower blocks that make up Glasgow’s Tarfside Oval were felled by controlled implosion on 24 September 2015, principal contractor Dem-Master and explosive demolition specialist Safedem rightly shared the media headline glory. While such plaudits are unquestionably justified, both companies readily admit a debt of gratitude to a single demolition consultancy beavering away in the background.
C&D Consultancy, the brainchild of former Institute of Demolition Engineers’ president John Woodward, has well over 30 Glasgow tower block demolition projects under its belt. Yet the company doesn’t pre-weaken blocks; it doesn’t charge them with explosives; it doesn’t drive a high reach excavator; and it does not carry out top down deconstruction. Nevertheless, in the past seven years, the company has played a pivotal role in major projects employing each of these techniques, working with the likes of Coleman and Company, Dem-Master, Safedem and Technical Demolition Services (TDS).
The company’s services range from prescribed CDM co-ordination and Principal Designer duties and client liaison to less tangible but no less vital support in the form of advisor-cum-sounding board.
“Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho once famously described Didier Deschamps as a water carrier. But it wasn’t meant as an insult. He was highlighting the fact the Deschamps did the unglamorous work on a football field that allowed the more skilful and creative players to do what they do best,” C&D’s Mike Kehoe says. “C&D Consultancy is a water carrier. We could not hope to blow down a tower block with the skill and precision of the team at Safedem or to high reach a block as well as Dem-Master. But by doing what we do, we allow those companies to focus upon what they do best.”
A key part of C&D’s role is helping clients gain a greater understanding of the demolition process. A good example of this is the care taken when initially helping design an exclusion zone prior to the controlled explosive demolition of a tower block. “The British Standard prescribes an exclusion zone but beyond the zone is the presence of neighbouring houses, underground services, railway lines, roads, rivers or other potential obstructions,” explains Mike Kehoe. “When we walk an exclusion zone perimeter with a contractor’s client, it often takes more than four hours because, as a team, we understand key considerations like road diversions and rail closures, evacuation and relocation of people and their pets, air traffic control concerns, police support on the ground and in the air, and perimeter security. There are a thousand and one items that need to be considered before a demolition contractor even sets foot on the site”.
Having assisted on tried and tested tower block demolition methodologies, C&D Consultancy has also played a pivotal role in Safedem’s pioneering use of the Italian-developed Top Down Way system. The company has provided training to the Italian workers that man the system to ensure that they understand the requirements of UK legislation, has helped facilitate the Health and Safety Executive’s understanding of the system for use in the UK, and has produced scores of manuals, risk assessments and fire and rescue plans to allow both Safedem and the system’s developer – Italian demolition contractor Despe – to concentrate upon the controlled deconstruction of two tower blocks in the midst of a live housing estate.
On 11 October 2015, when Safedem carries out Europe’s biggest-ever controlled explosive demolition to fell the six remaining blocks at Glasgow’s Red Road, the newspaper and TV headlines will rightly focus upon the skill with which Safedem carried out this momentous project.
But when Safedem’s managing director William Sinclair hits the button to start to blast sequence, the C&D team will be at his shoulder, as it has been for the past seven years.
Their name won’t appear on the side of the building or in the newspaper reports the following day. And that suits them just fine. After all, they’re just the water carriers.
