The Complexities of Town Centre Demolition

This Q&A with our SHE and Operations Director, Ben Griffiths, was released to the media in December 2021.

The complexities of undertaking a large-scale demolition project in a busy high street environment

Rye Demolition has recently been awarded a contract from Rushmoor Borough Council as part of the Council’s large-scale plans to regenerate Aldershot town centre.

The demolition firm’s task – to demolish the Galleries and Arcade shopping centres, a multi-storey car park, and a link bridge between two shopping centres that spans over a busy high street – is highly challenging in terms of its technical requirements, necessary expertise, and potential for disruption to the public.

To what extent does this kind of project differ from those that take place in a less public environment?

Without question, the link bridge – and its many implications! – makes this project unique, particularly in the context of its position on the high street.

Our first phase largely revolves around removing the bridge. It’s a suspended pedestrian foot bridge which spans across Wellington Street – directly above the market traders.

In order to make sure we achieve this safely and with minimal disruption to the public, we’re going to carry out various aspects of the work overnight. For example, we’ll need to begin by completely wrapping the bridge with a protective scaffold screen and debris netting.

The next stage involves dismantling the bridge internally – as much as we can, at any rate – by burning through the existing steel structural support.

With that done, we’ll then complete the final removal of the structure by siting a crane on Wellington High Street (which, again, will be an overnight process) to lift the larger support beams to the ground.

You’ve mentioned that the bridge is a unique aspect of the project – has it been difficult to work out how to dismantle it?

It’s the kind of challenge we relish, really, and we’ve had to get a little bit creative in order to work out the safest and most efficient approach.

For example, we’ve actually taken the time to visit some local council archives to hunt down the original plans of the bridge from the 1990s.

Taking that kind of extra step towards understanding the site has allowed us to plan for as safe a removal as possible.

The bridge isn’t the only technically demanding aspect of the project, of course. When the main shopping centre demolition starts, we’re going to have to nibble at the concrete with our demolition excavator to get a real sense of how strong it is and update our plans accordingly.

That phase of the project will also give us an opportunity to make use of specialist equipment like our high reach demolition excavator, which we can use to tackle the upper levels of the shopping centre even from ground level.

Can you elaborate on what the long-term benefits of the demolition will look like?

It’s my understanding that, by clearing the existing buildings, we’re paving the way for a new development that is planned to attract more students, businesses, and homeowners to Aldershot.

I think the aim is to make the high street more experience focussed, with the aim of attracting more people, money, and diversification.