Major setback as university development to be pulled down

The University of Sheffield’s partially-built social sciences faculty is to be completely demolished, 15 months after construction work began.

The main contractor, BAM Construction, had already revealed earlier this summer it was going to have pull down part of the £65m project.

But now it has “concluded that the best solution is to deconstruct the entire building before re-building”.

The announcement comes days after BAM’s UK construction business reported a half-year €18.3m (£16.4m) loss, highlighting a “technical setback” on an unnamed project which had settlement issues.

In May BAM had “identified that there was settlement occurring in excess of that which would normally be expected in a structure of this nature” at the University development.

It found that the foundations weren’t deep enough and at that stage decided half of the concrete frame would need to be pulled down.

©University of Sheffield

In a statement, BAM said: “The technical difficulties that have led to the present situation are highly unusual. Everyone’s aim has been to create a building that the University and surrounding community will be proud of and that improves on what was there before.

“Ultimately we will achieve this, just later than originally planned, and will keep doing what we can to reduce disruption in the meantime.”

BAM Construction had replaced Kier on the project after they failed to agree a final price with the Russell Group university.

The demolition works are expected to finish in October before re-piling is completed in early 2021.

This news will further anger residents who told the BBC recently that “the noise last summer was absolutely deafening”, describing the University and contractors as “the nightmare family living next door.”

BAM’s latest statement added that following the re-piling, “operations will be much quieter”.

The contractor’s statement added: “We are truly sorry that this is so disruptive for the neighbours. We are acutely conscious of the impact this has on those around us, in particular on a very close group of neighbours. We do apologise for this.

“We are doing what we can to offset this inconvenience and are restricting the times we are operating the concrete breaking machine which is the noisiest part of deconstruction. We are also making available temporary office accommodation so people can work there in quieter conditions if they wish.”