The Contract

Our contract involved the demolition of a chimney along with asbestos removal, strip out and demolition of over 25 buildings at Blackberry Hill, a former psychiatric hospital in Bristol.

The site was originally developed in 1779 as a prison, housing Dutch and Spanish prisoners from the American Revolutionary War. Over time further buildings of varying size and construction were added to the site.

The original prison buildings were grade II listed and were retained for regeneration. Newer additions to the listed buildings were demolished. Several buildings to be demolished adjoined the boundary wall and we took care to retain the integrity of the wall during the works to protect the neighbouring property.

Demolition Works

Buildings were worked on in turn as and when they became available. 

First, our subcontractor Abbey Contracting Ltd removed licensed asbestos as listed in the Asbestos Survey Report. Qualified L A Moore Ltd operatives then removed all non-licensed asbestos. Operatives stripped the building of loose items and then soft stripped the non-structural elements. As we worked we removed all waste materials from the building and sorted them for later recycling.

The non-listed buildings were then demolished down to ground level using excavators fitted with hydraulic pulveriser and concrete cracker attachments. During the demolition we suppressed dust using water harvested from roofs of the existing buildings. Following their demolition we broke out the foundations. Stone from the walls of demolished buildings was griddled and stored on site for future building work.

The 34m chimney was demolished using a three part high reach demolition excavator to gradually reduce its height and bring it down in a safe and controlled way. A Sandvik tracked crusher was used to crush all brick, hard-core and concrete arisings to 6F2 specification. The resulting crushed material was used in the foundation voids to leave a level site.

We supplied vehicles and skips to site to remove demolition materials to licensed facilities for recycling or landfill as appropriate.

We recycled 99.9% of all materials arising from this contract.

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