Demolition of Leicester's New Walk Centre set to shut roads
Roads surrounding Leicester's New Walk Centre could be partially shut for up to five months when the two towers are demolished, an expert has said.
City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby announced this week that the council's headquarters would be brought down and rebuilt within two years.
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Leicester's New Walk Centre
William Eyre, owner of Lost World Demolition, said the task could cost around £2 million.
He said: "It's a concrete building which was constructed in the 1960s, so the asbestos content means it will be expensive to demolish. Extra care will have to be taken to control the dust.
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"They'll start the demolition by fencing off and securing the site. Then the building will have to be soft stripped, which means the interior will be stripped of things such as door frames and other fixtures and fittings.
"By this stage, the lifts will have been removed so lots of this material will be put down the lift shaft to be removed from the site.
"After that, it's a case of removing the building floor by floor, from the top down.
"Because it's in a built-up area it's likely the roads and pavements close to the site will have to be closed – and the whole job is likely to take around 20 weeks."
Mr Eyre, from Leicester, who pulled down the Richard Roberts factory, the Byfords factory, part of Charles Street police station and part of the Towers Hospital, in Gypsy Lane, said the cost of the demolition would be at least £1 million, but could be double that depending on the amount of asbestos in the two buildings.
Earlier this week, Sir Peter said the tower blocks would have to come down, due to engineers' fears they are unsafe.
He said rather than moving staff to existing buildings in the city, he would prefer to see a new headquarters built on the same site. The project will cost tens of millions of pounds.
He had originally preferred the idea of relocating staff within the city, but the council says there is not enough space.
A council spokesman said: "There are about 1,200 staff currently at New Walk Centre, which is about two-thirds of its capacity, with a number of staff already having been moved out to reduce the stress on key areas of the building. The other city council-owned buildings are already occupied close to their maximum capacity.
"Even taking into account predicted job losses and redundancies over the coming years, there will still be about 2,450 staff working in council-owned city centre buildings, which need about 20,830 square metres of space.
"Without New Walk Centre, we are left with only about 14,300 square metres of office space, meaning we are short by 6,600 square metres."
Comments
by nursemad
Monday, January 02 2012, 10:22PM
“It is a disgusting ugly building and should be demolished, but then again the same could be said for the Curve... and bearing in mind this monstrosity was a replacement for the Haymarket, what hideous, ugly, dyfunctional building will be built by Leicester Council as a replacement???”
by eastgates
Monday, January 02 2012, 3:49PM
“They were built for British Rail.”
by redcat
Monday, January 02 2012, 3:47PM
“by llamalambSunday, January 01 2012, 5:29PM
The staff used to call the place "The Banana Split" - I was never quite sure why? It was thought to be a waste of money from day one."
I would presume it's because, like the banana split dessert, it is two curved parts with a space in between?”
by llamalamb
Sunday, January 01 2012, 5:29PM
“If my memory serves me well, these offices were not built for the council. They were a speculative development that sat empty for a while as nobody wanted it. I worked for the City Council from 1975 to 1978 in the Town Hall and the Greyfriars building. When I finished college in 1980 I came back to Leicester and worked in the New Walk Centre for a couple of years from 1980. Going back in now it hasn't changed much. Apart from the obvious security and public desks areas on the ground floor of B block it doesn't even seem to have been decorated inside.
The staff used to call the place "The Banana Split" - I was never quite sure why? It was thought to be a waste of money from day one.”
by oldhenry
Saturday, December 31 2011, 9:46PM
“The building was erected in the 1970s not the 1960s. I presume the demolition man is trying to up the problems to get the price of the job up. A bit like 'teeth sucking' at the garage.By the middle 70s it was clear that asbestos was dangerous and should not have been used. So whty are the original developers not being sued for the awful job in building the NWC?
I expect the next building will be little better and in 30 years there will be wails that 'it's got to come down', it's not themally efficent - or whatever the excuse is then.”
by LuvLeicester
Saturday, December 31 2011, 7:32PM
“A new build will cost 40+ million and will take about two and a half years to finish including the demolition and all the disturbance involved.”
by Eastonian
Saturday, December 31 2011, 4:43PM
“New game for the New Year.
Who would we like to be in New Walk Centre when it is demolished?!!
Answer on a postcard, please!!”
by burnmw1987
Saturday, December 31 2011, 4:19PM
“@LuvLeicester - If what PlanetJane says is correct (I can't confirm it as I've never seen, but I have no reason to suspect she is lying) then why not pull it down and start again. To "patch it up" would be the medical equivalent of sticking plasters on a broken bone, pointless!
And whilst it is a lot of money, say the council spend £10m on building the new buildings, and £2m on the demolition of this monstrosity then that is £12m spent. If they spend (for instance) £5m "patching up" what they have, then in 2 years they spend £12m building the new stuff (increase of price due to inflation etc etc) and £2.5m demolishing what they have that's nearly £20m spent, almost double. That's even more money we don't have now and won't have then!
I hate wasting money but sometimes it's better that way.”
by LuvLeicester
Saturday, December 31 2011, 1:44PM
“Patchin-up is better than spending non-existing tens of millions. The Mercury building facade was patched up, and now looks like a modern building.”
by PlanetJane
Saturday, December 31 2011, 1:28PM
“@LuvLeicester have you not read the reports? Can you not see that "patching it up" isn't going to work? It's an ugly wart. No-one in Leicester has ever liked it. People demonstrated when it started to be built. The original builders were........ well I can't say here because my post will be taken down.
Have you ever been in there? you can't open the windows. The air conditioning system makes people ill. It's just as ugly on the inside as it is on the outside. Have you been in the underground car park? They've got stalactites hanging off the ceiling ! Seriously, they have, go look.
Please, please, please, just destroy this dreadful, concrete monstrosity and build something to make Leicester people proud of. Outsiders can't believe that someone once allowed someone to build that thing !”