paisley renfrewshire foxbar highflats blowdown 12/12/04

marmion, heriot and montrose courts,these three 15 storey tower block's had originaly been tendered as a long reach demolition project. however following safedem's examination of the site ,the programme,and the costs involved explosive experts at safedem were called in to explore the possibility of demolishing the structures by explosive.

Each of the three building's had a restriction on one elevation .nearby housing just 10m away, live roads and retaining walls just 5m away and live services and high voltage cables that looped around the blocks just 3m away from the structures in places. The greatest concern was a live sub-station just 2m from the west elevation of the centre building....in the word's of scottish power's feild manager "if you hit that you cut off half the power to the half of paisley" a detailed risk assesment and cost comparison was carried out and with safedems assurance the block's were to be demolished by explosives. There was a massive evacuation on the day with over 600 residents evacusted from there homes which had included the evacuation of the only remaining tower block oliphant court.

Precisely on schedule on sunday 12th december 2004,the tower block's were demolished with more than 3000 strategically placed detonators controlling the rate and speed of collapse exactly as planned into the designated drop areas,the post blowdown inspection immediately focused on the live sub-station, the delay's had done there job with no kick back what so ever and leaving a clear path between the sub-station and the centre structure.
More video's of this can be found on you tube from different positions such as at the pond and from the car park in the braes

Category:

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Tags:

• foxbar
• demolition
• highflats
• blowdown
• paisley
• town
• renfrewshire
• implosion
• glasgow
• linwood
• glenburn

[thrillseeker70]

Where did the people living in those flats get moved to ?, also what did they replace the blocks with ?, what is there now?.

[MNOEL22]

the tennants got moved to other council housing there is now a old folks home in its place

[gm4dhj]

Tee! hee! nobody knows about the dead pigeon removed from a roof just after the explosion as we were looking for any damage ! ......

[MNOEL22]

oh yes i do i've got it on video.. they put the ladders up on to a gutter !!!!!!!!!!! to get it

[robert3302]

Seems backwards to destroy those beautiful buildings and let those ugly little houses in front of them stay.

[thrillseeker70]

@MNOEL22 your kidding me, the usual genius from the muppets in the council then. don't get me wrong it's a good thing to look after our old folk, it's just a shame that they didn't make more of the opportunity with a wee bit more ambition.

[martinedverlaque]

it was awsome to see i was there see the one in the middle tht used to be my home 3c i still remember the floor from this day

[nathanandbud]

it was i had to be evacuated from my house then

[Rbx2008x]

ahaa thats right next to my school:">!

[gm4dhj]

don't remember anybody with a camera there...never mind! ......poor pigeon.....