Airport Demolition Project

Hardcore Crushing Ltd recently completed a high-profile airport demolition project at one of the North-West's airports — a site where we have carried out several successful projects over the years. This scheme was one of the more complex in our portfolio, involving multiple phases of works delivered simultaneously to an extremely tight programme.

The project began with a programme of initial asbestos removal, carried out in conjunction with the specialists at our sister company Anglo Asbestos Ltd. Once the asbestos had been safely removed and the relevant clearance certificates issued, the internal soft-stripping phase commenced.

The soft-strip involved the removal of all remaining internal chattels — fixtures & fittings, lightweight partitions, linings, suspended ceilings, mechanical and electrical services, trunking, ducting, bracketry support, and general waste materials — ensuring the buildings were cleared back to the main structural shell, ready for the structural demolition phase.

Complex High-Bay Dismantling Works

As part of the early clear-out works, there were some high-bay metal partition walls and two large high-level suspended plasterboard ceilings throughout the vehicle maintenance and storage bays, which presented a specific challenge. At approximately 10 metres high, these would have been too time-consuming to strip by hand from Mobile Elevated Work Platforms — so our demolition machinery was brought in early to dismantle them efficiently. We had the space to operate the larger equipment, making it the ideal solution.

Once the hangar building and the lean-to two-storey offices had been fully cleared internally, we commenced the superstructure demolition — starting with the external offices and low-level attached structures around the perimeter of the main hangar, until all that remained was the empty aircraft hangar shell itself.

This comprised a massive clear-span steel 'North-Light' frame with both long elevations filled with masonry panels, and the huge hangar doors at each end of the building. A high-reach demolition excavator was employed to raze the structure to the ground — achieved by carefully pushing in the external masonry walls onto the floor slab inside, where all the hardcore arisings were then crushed on site to produce 6F2 recycled aggregate for the client to use in the permanent works. The large steel frame was then dismantled one bay at a time, working along the full length of the structure until complete.

FOD Management — Foreign Object Debris

Working on an active airport site introduced a specific operational consideration: the potential generation of FOD (Foreign Object Debris) — lightweight waste materials such as insulation and partitioning that could potentially be carried by wind into the path of aircraft. This is a critical safety requirement on all airport demolition projects.

This level of operational discipline is standard practice for Hardcore Crushing across all sensitive sites — whether airport, hospital, or live commercial environments.

Material Segregation & Recycling

During the demolition and dismantling activities, all arising materials were carefully picked and segregated into the following categories:

• Asbestos-containing materials — Hazardous Landfill
• General waste products — sorted and processed via a local Recycling Centre
• Metals (Ferrous & Non-Ferrous) — recycled via local Metal Recyclers
• Timber, Glass and Plastics — recycled via a local Recycling Centre
• Concrete, Blockwork, Brickwork & Macadam — crushed to 6F5 grading specification and retained on site by the client for use in the permanent works

The project generated approximately 2,700 tonnes of materials in total — the vast majority of which was recycled or reclaimed. Only approximately 25 tonnes went to landfill (primarily asbestos and waste insulation), meaning that more than 99% of the entire building was recycled and reclaimed. This makes the airport demolition project one of our most environmentally efficient contracts to date, scoring highly on the BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) chart.

The whole project was delivered on programme and to budget — a result we are extremely proud of given the operational complexity of the site.