Demolition contractors given police escort to emergency work
Demolition contractors had to carry out intricate emergency work on an old mill in Todmorden, after masonry from the crumbling building started falling onto the road below.
Demolition experts raced to the site of the old Cinderhill Mill after receiving an urgent call-out from Calderdale Council. Brickwork had begun falling from the decrepit structure onto Halifax Road. To ensure public safety, they had had to close off the artery route, causing gridlock throughout the town for 12 hours.
The contractors raced to the site – with their two cherry-pickers – with a police escort. They sprang to action upon arriving at the scene, spending hours making assessments as fast as possible about what they needed to do.
As a crowd of on-lookers gathered at a safe distance to watch them at work – and traffic backed up throughout the Calder Valley – the team eventually got down to the hard graft of physical demolition, using sledgehammers and chainsaws.
They reduced the walls to a safe level, placing the stone from the listed structure inside the remains of the building. It has been without a roof and open to the elements for some time.
A Calderdale Council spokeswoman said the owners had been sent the bill and were going to conduct a full survey on the building.
Planning permission for the site was granted to Greengrass Developments Ltd in January 2002 for 17 dwellings and a mill conversion to provide eight apartments.
