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Ainscough Crane Hire has delivered a complex derigging job on behalf of contractor Multiplex, which is currently building 100 Bishopsgate, one of London’s most exciting new office developments.
100 Bishopsgate is located within the City of London, and when complete will comprise approximately 950,000 sq ft of premium office and retail space across two buildings. The development consists of a 40 storey tower and a seven storey podium, incorporating a green roof terrace on level seven.
Multiplex is pre-construction advisor, design and build contractor and CDM coordinator for the £450m development on behalf of the 100 Bishopsgate Partnership, owned by Brookfield Property Partners.
After the original tower crane was dismantled from 190m to level 8 by Multiplex Plant and Equipment, Ainscough was appointed to derig the remaining 90m tower crane.
The derigging of the tower crane was a complex operation that required weeks of planning. Due to issues arising from concurrent gasworks that were taking place in the same area of the City of London, the derigging was rescheduled multiple times in line with safety precautions.
This left Ainscough with an increasingly short window of time to complete the operation.
Alison Mills of Ainscough’s London Regional Hire Centre secured the partial and full road closures that were required to ensure the work was completed successfully. Once on site, Nationwide Traffic Solutions managed the closures and ensured the disruption to vehicles and pedestrians was as limited as possible.
The tower crane commenced with the dismantle from level 8 on the first weekend, using a 450t crane on luffing fly jib complete with reduced outriggers and reduced ballast slew removing the A-Frame front jib and ballast blocks, with NTS deploying a live traffic lane to keep the traffic flowing. The following weekend a 500t crane was used to derig the remaining 60m of the tower crane but this time on a full road closure due to the configuration required.
The completion of the dismantling coincided with a particularly busy weekend for Ainscough in the City of London, with work taking place two streets down from Bishopsgate at Devonshire Square, where Ainscough was using another 450t to lift generators on to Premier Place, a refurbished office building being delivered by Greycoat Real Estate.
Bob Beardmore, Heavy Cranes Technical Manager, said: “This operation was a textbook demonstration of how teamwork can deliver a complex lift successfully. Throughout our team was focussed on careful planning, managing possible hazards and finding solutions to possible problems.
“Dismantling a 90m tower crane in the heart of the City of London work represented a real challenge for our team, but I’m happy to say it is one we rose to. From Alison’s sterling work in securing the road closures to our crane operators that delivered the dismantling under significant time pressure and in a tight location, this was truly a collective effort and I’m very pleased we were able to deliver such an exceptional service for Multiplex.”
