School work good value for Freeley

School work has provided a good return for J Freeley over the last two years, during which time it has demolished six such buildings that generated earnings of £1 million (US$1.7 million) for the company.

Its latest project was the demolition of the former Stamford Community High School in Ashton under Lyme in Greater Manchester, UK, for client Inspiredspaces Tameside. This is a company that was set up to deliver the UK government’s Building Schools for the Future programme in the borough.

Once the contract was awarded the actual demolition had to be delayed for a year for two reasons. First, an issue concerning protected species raised its head – the presence of a bat colony in one of the school buildings. To deal with the this issue, bat boxes were installed in trees around the site prior to demolition and high intensity lighting was installed and focussed on the buildings to put the bats off from roosting inside. Second, the old school had been booked for the filming of episodes of the UK television series Shameless. Once work finally commenced, the demolition was completed in 18 weeks, two ahead of schedule.

Four buildings were brought down, largely by mechanical means, by the 12 man crew using excavators fitted with grabs, pulverisers and a shear that was used to process the steel-framed structures. An electricity substation had to be retained live on the site during the work, which required the team to protect the cables running from it. Noise was also an issue, with monitoring being required to ensure that limits were not exceeded.

A total of 15,000 tonnes of concrete and masonry was generated by the demolition, which was crushed on site for use as recycled aggregate. In addition, 34 tonnes of asbestos materials had to be removed from the site prior to work commencing.