The challenge
First opened in 1971, Fiddler’s Ferry power station in Warrington, England, has formed an iconic part of the Northwestern skyline, being visible from as far away as the Peak District or Pennines. Following its closure in March 2020, infrastructure and property investors Peel NRE purchased the land, with plans to build a new mixed-use development including a residential scheme and primary school.
To facilitate this, P.P. O’Connor was tasked with demolishing the power station, with Phase One of these works including the four cooling towers, each standing at around 114 metres tall. Nikki Rowen, Health and Safety Manager from P.P. O’Connor explained this further: “We were brought in by Peel NRE to facilitate the first phase of demolition works, which involved bringing down four of the plant’s eight cooling towers. Whilst this process would only take seconds to carry out, rigorous planning and preparation was required before we could even consider starting the demolition.”
Due to the size of each of the towers, there was predicted to be a significant amount of airborne dust with this potentially having a knock-on effect on the surrounding area. Nikki continued: “When we were planning for this project, one of the most important considerations was to ensure the works didn’t have a detrimental effect on the surrounding area. There was a nearby chemical factory, which we had to be mindful of in terms of vibration levels. We were also very conscious of the neighbouring residential areas, due to the levels of dust and noise a demolition of this size would create."
Our solution
Nikki continued: “With this in mind, and acting in accordance with Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, we knew we needed to closely monitor environmental conditions around the site, ensuring we remained within safe parameters for a variety of factors. For this we turned to Mabey Hire and its Enviroguard monitoring solution.”
A real-time monitoring solution, Enviroguard can be set up and programmed to monitor a variety of elements specific to the needs of a site. It proved crucial to the success of this project, being used to measure the levels of dust, noise and vibrations generated by the levelling of the towers.
Nikki continued: “Mabey Hire’s Enviroguard boxes were installed in six carefully chosen locations around the site, with each Enviroguard unit containing all three sensors we required in the one case. Once live, we were able to receive instantaneous alerts should any of the pre-set tolerances be breached, allowing us to respond immediately. All data generated by the sensors was easily visible and accessible through Mabey Hire’s Insite portal – knowledge which we could easily share with key stakeholders, keeping them in the loop with the progress of works. We even then purchased a number of these boxes for use on other sites following completion of the demolition works at Fiddler’s Ferry.
“We found working with Mabey Hire really easy; its knowledgeable and dedicated team were always on hand to assist, with Allan Martin, their Senior Monitoring Engineer, specifically coming to site regularly to ensure everything was in place.”
The first phase of demolitions was completed in December 2023, with a date still to be set for phase two in 2025.
