The Car Park

The two houses just off St Julian’s Avenue in St Peter Port had stood derelict for decades, with various plans to rebuild deemed unviable for the tricky site. Finally, with the structures becoming very unsafe for such a busy location, plans were approved to use the space as a carpark. But demolishing the old buildings was no easy feat.

The two buildings on the Lower Canichers in St Peter Port had stood decaying for decades. Architect Andrew Male has been involved with the site for 25 years, but it’s believed the buildings had been derelict for more than four decades. Sitting on a busy Town thoroughfare, it became clear that the unsafe structures needed to be demolished.

The team at Lovell Ozanne had prepared various schemes for their client but, as Andrew explained, nothing made financial sense: “Our client had been granted approval for schemes in the past, but they never ended up being financially viable. The size of the site and the difficulties with access, as well as the requirement to allow the archaeologists time to investigate the area, meant that they didn’t merit the required investment.”

Eventually, with action necessary, the best option emerged – knocking down the buildings and creating a seven space carpark in their place to serve nearby offices. It wasn’t a complicated scheme in itself, but it soon became clear that demolishing the existing structures wasn’t going to be straightforward.

Contractor RG Falla Ltd was faced with a number of issues when it looked at how to approach the site. Commercial director, Mike Wagstaff, explained the difficulties: “This was a very challenging project for us to take on, especially with regard to the health and safety of our employees and the public. The buildings were at serious risk of collapse – the floors had fallen in and they were generally unsafe for us to enter, which made it very difficult for us to assess them.

“We were also expecting to find asbestos which would need to be dealt with, but we couldn’t survey or remove it in advance which would be our normal approach. Altogether, I would say that, at the beginning, we were a little scared of the project as we tried to work out how we could go about progressing it safely.”

While RG Falla had initially planned to use a local demolition contractor, the multiple challenges of the site meant that they decided to bring in a specialist UK operator, RM Penny, to help plan and execute how to bring the buildings down safely. For Mike and his team, that was the safest and most sensible option: “We have worked with RM Penny many times before so we knew that we could trust their approach. It was certainly the right decision as they said that during their 60 years’ of demolition projects in the UK, this was the worst one they had ever seen. They were quite clear that we would need to brace the back of the buildings. As you take the floors and walls out, or put any weight on them, the buildings will push out both ways, and they were quite big buildings at the back, three or four storeys.

“When we started the demolition, that was certainly the scariest part of the job. We braced the back, took the roof off and then punched holes through the remaining floors so that the debris could be dropped through into the basement rather than weighing down the floors and pushing the building out further. The debris had to be sprayed constantly to mitigate the dust, especially because of the pigeon infestation. “Actually, once we had started, the planning all paid off and it went very smoothly. Once it started to come down, it obviously gets easier as you get lower down, so by that stage we knew it would be fine.”

To allow access to the site, which fronts on to a busy thoroughfare through to St Julian’s Avenue, the road was closed for the duration of the project. But Mike said even that didn’t appear to cause difficulties: “When the road was closed it actually seemed to work quite well, and the feedback we had was that people were happy with the traffic flow, so we were glad that didn’t cause an issue. Most people were just interested in what we were doing.”

With many neighbouring buildings close by, including The Swan public house and the HSBC headquarters, the RG Falla team didn’t have a lot of space to work in. The solution was using MEWPS (mobile elevated working platforms) to access the front of the site, while the rear wall was removed from a scaffold platform. Working

WHEN THE ROAD WAS CLOSED IT ACTUALLY SEEMED TO WORK QUITE WELL, AND THE FEEDBACK WE HAD WAS THAT PEOPLE WERE HAPPY WITH THE TRAFFIC FLOW, SO WE WERE GLAD THAT DIDN’T CAUSE AN ISSUE.

Before

with the engineers, Dorey, Lyle and Ashman, temporary works were implemented including the retention of buttress walls adjacent to The Swan.

Once the buildings were razed to the ground, their replacement was erected – a concrete slab suspended at the back on steels, and seven parking spaces with a turntable and two double charging points. In addition, a replica wall was erected at the front with a roller shutter. RG Falla also worked on the gables of the adjoining properties.

For Andrew, simplicity was key to its success: “One of the problems with other schemes had been their level of complication. The site is difficult to access and needed the road to be closed during work, so any planned building had to be as quick and easy as possible. We just put a lightweight concrete structure in as a deck, propped up from below to allow access to the archaeological site.”

Altogether, the project took around a year – with Covid delays and the required archaeological access adding to the timescale.

As for the final product, Andrew believes they have produced something of merit, if not of architectural significance: “From a design point of view, we were looking for a fairly easy, noncontroversial solution. When we spoke to the Planning Department about the elevation, they were clear that they didn’t want a view of the carpark from the road. So, we really copied what was there before. But we’ve got rid of an eyesore and tidied up St Peter Port, which is certainly a positive outcome.”

CONTRACTORS

Architect

Lovell Ozanne and Partners Ltd

Structural engineer

Dorey Lyle and Ashman

Quantity surveyor Deacon and Jones

Main contractor

RG Falla Ltd

Demolition contractor

RM Penny

DIGGING UP THE PAST

When the plans for the site were progressing, there was an additional element to factor in – the potential archaeological importance of the area. The previous States of Guernsey archaeologist, Heather Sebire, had worked on the site for a period from 2001 but needed to abandon the project a few years later. The demolition allowed her successor, Phil de Jersey, to access the site and finish her work.

The area was originally of interest due to its proximity to La Plaiderie 50 metres away, where a Roman site was excavated in the 1980s. With very little green space left in that area of Town, the back gardens of the original houses piqued the archaeologist’s interest, as Phil de Jersey explained: “I inherited an interest as my predecessor, Heather, had worked on it in the early 2000s. Over a period of around 18 months, she did as much as she could in the garden of the property. She didn’t find any Roman material but did find a heap of stones which appeared to be a prehistoric stone cairn.

“Unfortunately, her work ground to a halt simply because she ran out of room to put the spoil. She had filled up the basement of the houses during the excavation, and due to the fact the site was completely hemmed in, she had nowhere else to go. Additionally, to get a better view of the prehistoric site she would need to burrow under the buildings, which wasn’t possible, so the site was abandoned.”

A decade and a half later, the demolition of the buildings allowed Phil to do just that, with the planning conditions allowing him and his team access to the site. They were granted four weeks to dig in the area and uncover anything of interest. While the time unfortunately coincided with a spell of very wet weather, Phil said it was still a productive month.

“Despite the fairly horrendous conditions with the weather and the pigeon infestation, we managed to complete the project to our satisfaction, although we never really fully understood what the prehistoric pile of stones is doing there. There is certainly some structure to it, but working in such a small area is very difficult and the other prehistory of the site will be gone under the other buildings in the area.”

The team found some good quality prehistoric flint and pottery, which gave them a basic dating – although they didn’t locate any bone or finds of real significance.

The building work on site has been completed in such a way that it could be accessed for further archaeological excavation, but Phil doesn’t think that it would merit more work.

“The surrounding area with the offices and The Swan has been pretty much destroyed in archaeological terms. There is a bit at the front of the site nearest the road which we haven’t explored, but it certainly wouldn’t be high up our list of investigations. However, it was certainly worth doing the work we did, and it was good to finish a dig that was started so long ago. I think, in a way, it’s nice that we don’t understand it – archaeology is about solving puzzles but we can let this site stay a bit of a mystery.”

THE PIGEON PROBLEM

Among the safety issues on the site was the large amount of feral pigeons that had taken up residence in the derelict buildings.

Over the years, their presence had led to a build-up of more than a foot of guano on the floor of the buildings, which is hazardous to human health. The contractors therefore had to deal with that contamination as well as the physical risks of the decayed structure.

It meant that while as much waste separation was carried out as possible, a large amount of rubble had to go to the tip because it had been contaminated by the guano.

The GSPCA was consulted before any work started, and during the demolition around 200 pigeon chicks were rescued and taken to the animal shelter.