Midnight Blow Down at Littlebrook Power Station

11th April 2019

Littlebrook Power Station Event 3

Blow Down of D Station Turbine Hall

Brown and Mason delivered yet another impressive but perfectly executed safe explosive demolition project at the stroke of midnight on the 4th of April 2019. Local residents reported a large bang as the 10 second blow down of the “D” station turbine hall took place, and as you can tell from the video below, it was clearly a project planned out meticulously by the best explosive demolition team available.

Project Details

Time and Date: 1200 Midnight on Thursday 4th April 2019

Project Location: Littlebrook Power Station, Rennie Drive, Dartford, Kent DA1 5PT

Client:

Bericote Properties Limited

The client, Bericote Properties, retain overall responsibility for the site but contracted the services of Brown and Mason as Principal Contractor to maintain operational control and to carry out the safe demolition of structures at Littlebrook Power Station.

Special Requirements:

Postponement due to QE2 Bridge Closure Restrictions. The event was dependent on the planned short term rolling road block on the Queen Elizabeth II bridge by Connect Plus on behalf of the Highways Agency.

Events

Having analysed the structures on site and then carried out a comparative risk assessment with regard to the feasibility of the use of explosives to affect a mode of collapse against the risk to personnel from working at height during hand demolition explosive events were designated for the project.

The events were as follows:

Event Description

Event No.	Event Description.	Event Date
1	Explosive demolition of the “B” station boiler house.	28/04/18
2	Explosive demolition of the “A” station turbine hall.	09/06/18
3	Explosive demolition of “D” station turbine hall	04/04/19

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder liaison was carried out by the Explosive Event Controller Calum Cameron in cooperation with Bericote and Kam.

Liaison with businesses in the area surrounding the project was carried out through ‘The Bridge’ forum. BAM provided information to them for onward notification to interested parties.

Local residents were notified by both the “bridge forum” and via local media (Kent Online etc) one week prior to the event.

BAM notified basic details of the event to Dartford Shopper, Kent Online and the Dartford Messenger news services approximately 1 week before the event to ensure, as far as possible, that all local stakeholders were aware of the event.