Wolverhampton Bus Garage Demolished

Back in October last year, the Homes and Communities Agency put out a tender for the demolition of the former Bus Garage on Bilston Road in Wolverhampton. Seven months on, and the garage is now demolished, with work continuing to clear the site. New images of the current state of the site can be found on the Express & Star website.

The site covers 12.5 acres of land, which once cleared will make way for new housing as part of the government's new housing plan across England. The Garage formed part of the Royal Hospital redevelopment project. Originally, Tesco was planning a £65 million superstore agreed in 2015, but pulled those plans due to ongoing and disappointing sales.

Local residence will hopefully be happy to see the redevelopment of the site progressing as it has been left in a state of disrepair since 1997.

A trip down memory lane… Thursday, 16th January 2014

Three years ago today, C&D’s founder John Woodward visited Smestow School to speak at their school assembly as part of a government initiative called ‘Inspiring The Future’, which encouraged UK engineers to devote some of their time to promoting engineering as a future career choice.

The talk was designed to encourage school leavers to consider a career in demolition in which John showed the audience examples of both high reach and explosive demolitions and how ground-breaking technology is taking the industry to new heights.

He spoke passionately about the myths and stereotypes surrounding the industry, comparing the media’s view of demolition to that of teenagers – outdated and, ultimately, completely wrong.

John also used examples of where demolition has cleared the past to make way for the future, citing London 2012 as a case in point where the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) demolished a former industrial site in Stratford, East London to clear the ground ready for the construction of Olympic Park, which included a main stadium, aquatics centre, velodrome, three sports arenas, a hockey centre and accommodation for competitors.

John’s talk had an immediate impact on one particular student who contacted C&D a few days later to enquire about the possibility of work experience.

That young man was Matt Birch, who now works full-time with C&D as a trainee demolition engineer.

It’s amazing what a little bit of inspiration can do.

C&D customer McAuliffe Group expand their transport fleet with Volvo

Wolvehampton-based McAuliffe Group has placed an order for eight, brand new Volvo tipper trucks from The Harthstone Group. The order has been made possible thanks to turnover doubling over the past 24 months.

McAuliffe has managed the revenue increase through rejuvenating brownfield sites, and this has led to greatly increased demand for the company's services. They re-profile old land, demolish old buildings, recycle as much of the waste as possible, and decontaminate areas safely when necessary. It's the whole package. And this isn't a new company, 2015 is the firm's 45th year of operation and they've been using Volvo vehicles since the 70's. The reason? High resale value.

We see nothing but positives coming out of McAuliffe's operations right now. Long may it continue!

Source: Express & Star

NEBOSH General Certificate Course in Wolverhampton

On the 11th May we have a NEBOSH General Certificate Course beginning in Wolverhampton. Here are the details:

- The course runs for 2 days per week for 6 weeks
- The venue is the GTG Training Centre located at Bearing Drive, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV11 3SZ
- The course costs £1500.00 +VAT incl all course fees

If you would like to know more details or to book your place, please get in touch: jill@demolishdismantle.co.uk

Steve Bull starts open networking sessions at his Wolverhampton restaurant

Steve Bull, best known for his goal scoring ability, is kicking off a new relaxed, open networking session at his Bravaccio's Italian cuisine restaurant. The aim being to attract an after work crowd to the restaurant to relax and do business.

It's called the Bully's Business Club and meeting will be held on the following dates:

• Friday January 30th 2015
• Friday February 27th 2015
• Friday March 27th 2015
• Friday April 24th 2015
• Friday May 29th 2015
• Friday June 26th 2015
• Friday July 31st 2015
• Friday August 28th 2015
• Friday September 25th 2015
• Friday October 30th 2015
• Friday November 27th 2015
• Friday December 11th 2015

If you's like to attend a meeting on one of the dates listed above, then get in touch with the restaurant either by emailing reservations@bravaccios.co.uk or calling 01902 756052.

Bravaccio's is situated at Upper Green, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, WV6 8QQ.

John Woodward to speak at First4Staff networking event

First4Staff is holding its final networking event of 2014 next Tuesday, 9th December and our very own John Woodward will be guest speaker.

The event is being held at Bravaccios, which is located in Wolverhampton at the following address:

Bravaccios
4 Upper Green
WV6 8QQ Wolverhampton
United Kingdom

Tickets are free, but only a handful remain if you are keen to attend. Please visit the Eventbrite page to claim yours.

‘Steps To Work’ have kindly offered to donate over £100 worth of raffle prizes for charity to be split equally between the ‘Steve Bull Foundation’ and ‘Breakthrough Breast Cancer’. As well as John's talk there will be a Turkey themed dinner on offer to get you in the mood for Christmas!!

C&D Customer McAuliffe adds four lorries and four new jobs

Wolverhampton-based and C&D customer McAuliffe is thanking a thriving property market this month for its expansion. The company offers a range of services to house builders, and with increasing demand from that sector, four new lorries and four new jobs have been created at the company.

To achieve the expansion, McAuliffe went to its banking partner for the required £346,000 hire purchase facility with which to acquire the new lorries. A knock on effect of that being four new job being created, taking McAuliffe's staff total to 50. A further eight lorries are expected to be ordered within the next six months.

Source: Express & Star

John Woodward goes back to school - Again!

Regular readers of this website will know that John is dedicated to educating a new generation of demolition engineers and he is a regular contributor to the new "Inspiring the Future" and "Primary Futures" initiatives where professionals give time free of charge to attend schools to talk to the pupils about the world of work and what a typical working day involves.

John has done a number of these talks now including the UK launch days, so he was delighted to have been chosen to attend the National Launch events in Wolverhampton later this week.

John will be doing 5 presentations during the launch event on Friday 17th October with four of those presentations at Oak Meadow Primary School, Wednesfield in the morning and a longer presentation after lunch at Northwood Park Primary School in Wolverhampton.

As you can see from the provisional programme it will be a packed day but we are sure that John will be an inspiring speaker.

Wolverhampton hotel prosecuted for exposing staff to asbestos

Focus Hotels Management Ltd has been prosecuted following an inspection and subsequent investigation by the Wolverhampton City Council Environmental Health team.

The location of the inspection was Mercure Goldthorn Hotel in Penn Road, which was found to have a boiler room unfit for use. In fact, it looked to have been unfit for years due to having asbestos insulation in a very poor condition.

A guilty plea for infringing the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 resulted in a fine of £10,000 and costs of £2,055, but that doesn't do anything to take back the exposure many people working at the hotel over the years experienced.

If you'd like to know more about the dangers of asbestos and help avoid such situations happening again, please get in touch to discuss our training options.

Source: Wolverhampton City Council

Construction ceases on 97,000 sq ft Tesco supermarket in Wolverhampton

The project to build a new Tesco on the site of the old Royal Hospital in All Saints, Wolverhampton, has been put on hold just two months after it began. Some 40 contractors were forced to stop work and leave the site.

The important thing is, the restoration work on the listed former hospital will continue, but work was ceased on the 97,000 sq ft supermarket while Tesco carries our a review.

The worry now is that Tesco doesn't decide to continue, which would mean the planned completion in 2015 and the 500 jobs it was going to create in the area would disappear. Hopefully the review will just see Tesco modify the dates and carry on construction.

Source: Express & Star

John Woodward to speak at Smestow School, Wolverhampton on Careers in Demolition Engineering

Some time ago John enrolled on a government initiative that encourages UK engineers to give up some of their time and visit schools to promote engineering as a career, and following that enrolment Smestow School in Wolverhampton asked for him to speak at the school assembly on Thursday, 16th January.

The talk will be to encourage school leavers to consider a career in Demolition and will include examples of high reach demolition and explosive demolition.

The promotional flyers for the school are reproduced below. Click the second one to see it full size with clear, readable text.

Two great fireworks displays happening this week

With it being Halloween later this week and Bonfire Night next week, it's only fitting that organized fireworks demonstrations happen this coming weekend. If you're in the West Midlands, then there's two great shows we'd like to highlight, one happening on Friday, the other on Saturday.

The first will be in Hickman Park, Bilston on Friday, November 1st. The second is in West Park, Wolverhampton on Saturday, November 2nd. These are both family events that also include a bonfire, but you will need tickets to attend. To book them just phone the Midland Box Office on 0870 320 7000. You can also pay on the night, but it's worth phoning to avoid any queuing in the cold.

Demolition/Asbestos Awareness Course February 3rd

Following requests from regular clients C&D are holding a Demolition/Asbestos Awareness Course that is open to all companies at the end of this week.

The course is booked for the 3rd February at the Tractor Shed, Bantock House, Finchfield Road, Wolverhampton, WV3 9LQ and will start at 09.00am

The cost will be £70.00 per person plus VAT and we have spaces available if you require them.

To book, please email jill@demolishdismantle.co.uk

C&D announce new Fire Marshall and Fire Safety Manager training dates for 2012

New dates have been added for the Fire Marshall and Fire Safety Manager courses. Both courses take place on the same day starting with Fire Marshall that is a half day course up to lunch and then the afternoon course added to the Fire Marshall course takes the candidate up to Fire Safety Manager level.

Dates and venues include:

Coventry. Ibis Hotel, CV3 4LF
03/01/2012 and 20/03/2012

Leicester, Mercure Hotel LE1 6ES
04/01/2012 and 21/03/2012

Wolverhampton, Park Hall Hotel, WV 4 5AJ
17/01/2012 and 03/04/2012

Birmingham, Ibis Hotel, B5 4S
18/01/2012 and 04/04/2012

Rates are:

Fire Marshall £100 plus VAT
Fire Safety Manager £200 plus VAT

For bookings contact Jill at jill@demolishdismantle.co.uk

Save your life for £30.00

Here at C&D Consultancy we spend many an hour delivering Asbestos Awareness courses to the demolition industry to spread the word of “The Hidden Killer” HSE campaign but we are concerned that there are still 4000 people per year dying from asbestos related diseases and the majority of these people are carpenters, plumbers and electricians who are maybe not aware that if they “could” be exposed to asbestos then they must have asbestos awareness training.

Because of our concerns we have decided to run asbestos awareness training courses for West Midlands tradesmen at a venue in in Wolverhampton on every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks to try to improve upon the impact of the HSE campaign. The courses will run in the evenings for approximately 2 hours and will be at the reduced price of £30.00 per person, hence the “Save your life for £30.00”.

For further details of the course or to book a place please email
john.woodward@demolishdismantle.co.uk or call 01902 686363.

SoulBoy – A film about one of my early passions

During the 1970’s I spent many a happy hour in dark, discos that played exclusively Motown and Northern Soul music, starting out at Dudley Zoo club and The Catacombs, Wolverhampton and then progressing to all nighters at Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, Up The Junction in Crewe and The Torch at Hanley until finally going to Blackpool Mecca and the legendary Wigan Casino.

It has always been hard to explain to people who were never into the music why the Northern Soul scene was so good in those days and why it continues to thrive today, but now all of you can look into the past and see why we travelled hundreds of miles in old vans and A35 cars to dance all night to great sounds, buy and sell records and wear fashions that may seem strange today but were fantastic at the time, because of a new film “SoulBoy” currently in cinemas across the UK.

The film is showing in Wolverhampton next week at The Lighthouse Cinema and I will be there to relive part of my youth and to listen again to songs that made us want to dance, spin and stay up all night.

For a flavour of what life used to be for a Northern Soul fan in 1974 take a look at the film preview above or at
http://www.soulboythefilm.com/

And then read about Northern Soul at
http://www.soulboythefilm.com/northern-soul-then

Armac demolish Spar shop & office block in Wolverhampton

Armac has just carried out the demolition of a former Spar shop and Piper's Row House office block in Wolverhampton.

The work involved a 5-man team, 65-ton muncher, and 40-ton claw. Rubble from the site will help form the new foundations for a £22.5 million bus station. Alongside the station there are plans to build a new 16,0000 sq ft two-storey building.

Source: Express & Star

Derelict garages in Wolverhampton may finally be demolished (UPDATED)

UPDATE: We have been informed that Armac Group will be carrying out the demolition once the garages are free of tenants at the end of March.

A group of derelict garages near Ashmore Park, Wolverhampton might finally come up for demolition after website WV11 and local paper the Express & Star got involved.

As can be the case with derelict sites, they end up attracting the wrong type of behaviour. After being broken into, incidents of fly tipping, graffiti, and anti-social behaviour started occurring in the area.

Kate Hughes, communications manager for Wolverhampton Homes, said back in February that:

The Garages are set to be demolished soon and we are currently negotiating with the 2 remaining tenants, but until alternative locations are found we can’t demolish them.

The one blocker to demolition was those tenants and finding them alternative locations. Now notices have been served for them to stop using the garages by 25th March meaning a demolition order can be issued.

Source: WV11.co.uk