Washington House, Salford
Location: New Bailey Street, Salford
Client: English Cities Fund
Client’s Project Manager: English Cities Fund
Value: £350,000
Timescale: March 2015 to July 2015
Scope: The asbestos removal, soft-strip, demolition and site clearance of a 7-storey office building. Site between railway station and River Irwell with busy streets on other sides.
Background Information
The seven storey building was a 1970’s concrete framed, brick clad office block. The block was bounded on one side by Salford Central railway station and the other by the River Irwell. Directly in front of the block was New Bailey Street, a busy city centre thoroughfare and to the rear was the construction site for a new office block and multi-storey car park.
Demolition Method
The building was stripped of all asbestos containing materials and soft-stripped of all other items prior to the commencement of demolition. The building was demolished using a Hitachi long reach excavator fitted with a concrete pulverisor with 360o rotation. The south gable of the building was demolished, working towards the central core staircase. With a local weekend road closure of the adjacent access road, the other gable end was demolished working back towards the central core.
The demolition was carried out above a live, relatively shallow, main sewer which ran across the site so substantial ground protection was put down to prevent damage to the sewer. Pre-demolition and post-demolition remote camera surveys of the sewer were also carried out.
Remediation Work
The demolition material arising from the work was crushed on site and compacted down in layers over the footprint of the site. This material formed the base for the follow-on works to create an attractive public realm space.
