Interserve, the international support services and construction group, is demolishing a cinema building in Bournemouth which has become famous in the area as a too modern, too high eyesore blocking sea views.

Locals have been complaining for years about the IMAX Waterfront Building, built approximately fifteen years ago, which Interserve has been stripping from the inside out over the past few months, in readiness for its final destruction. The site is to be turned into an open-air events space for the public to enjoy until the market recovers and the site can be redeveloped as part of a wider leisure scheme.

Chris Seymour, Interserve's Project Manager, described how the work is being handled on behalf of the client, Bournemouth Borough Council: "We are using Komatsu 55-tonne, 50-tonne and 20-tonne demolition excavators plus smaller, ancillary vehicles, including Bobcats. In a scheme of this kind, we would usually be required to demolish the entire building. However, in this case we have been asked to preserve the building's basement. We have installed new steelwork to the basement to be able to take 10kN/m2: a highways loading capability. This capability is much greater than that of most buildings, and takes into account the possible future uses of the site. Further to this we have installed 750 props in the basement to accommodate the loads of the demolition plant and building waste.

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"Partitions, walls and stage areas have been removed in the basement using a 1.5 tonne Brokk remote control excavating machine. Building waste has been transported out of the building manually using a large amount of labour."

In total, approximately 13,500 tonnes of building waste will be removed during the course of the project, including 3,000 tonnes of steel and 8,000 tonnes of concrete, 90 per cent of which is being recycled locally. The project is expected to be completed by the end of June this year.

(CD)