C&D customer Safedem bring the house down at Dundee

Last Sunday saw C&D customer Safedem bring down two Dundee towerblocks in a controlled explosion that was doubly difficult in as much as, not only was there a church between the blocks that had to remain, but the blocks were constructed in a way not seen before by the Safedem blasting team of William & David Sinclair.

Media interest was great with the blast being shown live on Sky News and in reports on local tv and national BBC bulletins throughout the day.

Here at C&D we say a massive "Well Done" to all of the team involved on the day to complete a major, extremely difficult blowdown of unusually constructed blocks with no injuries to workforce or the general public. Yes there was minor cosmetic damage to the church, that will be repaired by the time you read this article, but that should not be seen as anything more than a minor incident in a superb job.


As well as the video footage above, we also have the post blast comment from William Sinclair as follows:-

There is a saying - save the best to last.

After almost 20 years of multi storey demolitions, Dundee City Council awarded their last two tower blocks to local company Safedem. Since 1995, Safedem have steadily changed the skyline of it's hometown demolishing over 40 tower blocks across the city in this period.

At 27 storeys the Derby Street blocks where built in an area surrounded by sandstone tenements with ornately carved date stones from the 1800's. However it was a relatively modern 1970's structure, St Martins church, that was located between the blocks that captured the medias attention.

Derby Street is located in the Hilltown area - aptly named as the sloping site saw the tower blocks built off a heavy duty podium structure that resembled the support legs from the nearby Tay bridge. The slope was such that at the east end of the structure the 850mm thick columns were 9metres tall - at the west end they were just 3 metres.

The internal floor plan of the structures was also highly unusual, with maisonette style homes spread over 3 floors, with the centre of the structure offset from the main living areas. The maisonettes , tall and narrow homes, where heavily reinforced concrete Walls divided the rooms every 2.75 metres. A total of 37 heavily reinforced cross Walls at any one level made this one of the most rigid tower blocks Safedem has ever encountered.

All these cross Walls needed drilled so each building had in excess of 5000 drill holes (a standard block is closer to 2500 holes), each drill hole housing an individual charge and delay detonator.

When assessing the structures and the nearby buildings to remain, it was obvious that each structure required it's own unique collapse mechanism. The north block needed to be initiated at the east end and directed to the east towards the nearby main road. The south block needed to come straight down and then rotate away from the church ensuring the debris came to rest away from St Martins towards a series of 4 storey buildings that form part of Safedems overall demolition project in the area.

Due to the proximity of the church a protective screen constructed of scaffold was erected at the gable of the church.

The evacuation of this heavily populated city centre location was carried out by Safedem s Community Liaison Team. Hundreds of residents were temporarily evacuated and catered for in the dedicated rest centre, ensuring the demolition could proceed within the target time window.

On initiation, and in front of thousands of onlookers, the two structures dropped as designed in a safe and controlled manner. On inspection of the church, part of the 14,000 tonnes of rubble from the north block had come to rest against the scaffold protection screen. The screen had ensured there was no structural damage to the church, although there was some minor damage to a fire escape area to the rear of the church building. The minor damage will be repaired in the next day or so.

Safedem Managing Director, William Sinclair commented,

" I was disappointed to see the minor damage at the church fire escape area because the standards we set ourselves are so high. However these were Dundees tallest structures and of a truly complex and rigid construction and I am delighted they are safely down having collapsed as designed.

This project required real team work from a number of agencies and real thanks must go to not just the hardworking Safedem team, but also to Dundee City Council and Police Scotland who worked with us every step of the way to deliver another safe and successful blowdown in Dundee."