REGENERATION

One of Birmingham’s biggest buildings is being reduced to dust as part of the £750 million transformation of the former MG Rover site at Longbridge.

Regeneration specialist St Modwen has begun demolishing the 750,000 sq ft New West Works building – built in 1973 to house the body plant for the new Mini Metro and subsequently used to build all future Rover models.

The building, itself the size of Birmingham’s Brindleyplace, is 294m long, 229m wide and 18m high. It is being demolished to make way for proposed new homes and business space.

The demolition follows on from the extensive investigation and ground clearing work which began in February on Longbridge West, and which involved the remediation of more than 200,000 cubic metres of soil across the site to prepare the land for development.

St Modwen’s construction manager Mark Batchelor said: “The demolition of one of the UK’s largest industrial buildings is a huge undertaking and a great deal of planning has been carried out not only to make the process safe, but to ensure we recycle as much of the material as possible.

“In keeping with our sustainable approach to this whole project, all of the material, bar any asbestos related substances, will be taken away for recycling or will be re-used elsewhere on site.

This includes 4,804 tonnes of steelwork, 34 tonnes of non-ferrous metals and 115 tonnes of cable and copper – fitting perfectly with our corporate target to reclaim or re-use 95 per cent of all materials from demolition and remediation. The demolition process is expected to be complete in the autumn.