EMERGENCY works are set to start on Warrington’s historic Garnett’s cabinet works tomorrow, Saturday.
Members of the town’s Civic Society are planning to keep a watching brief after beign informed none of the work will involve any demolition at this stage.
A council spokesperson said: “Following a meeting with the owners PTS, work will begin on Saturday 13 Feb under Section 78 Building Act 1984, Dangerous Building- Emergency measures, to make safe part of the chimney and removal of a collapsing gable end wall. This will be done using a high-access platform on Barbauld Street, and will not require demolition of any part of the site.
“The owners have also issued party wall notices under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996: to the relevant neighbours and we expect them to submit a planning application, and Section 80 notice imminently for their plans for the site, which the council will assess following the proper and usual process.
“We are working closely with all necessary parties, including the owners and Historic England, to look at what remediation is required to make safe the most imminently dangerous areas.
“Full demolition is not planned and we will be working very closely with the agent appointed to carry out the works on behalf of the owners of the building to ensure that any demolition is within strict guidelines.”
Civic Society Chairman John Shipley says members will be keeping a watching brief. He said it was good news that no demolition was planned and proper planning procedures would have to take place before any demolition works took place.
4 Comments
Gosh that’s a quick start as the council were only meeting with them today to discuss what their [the owners] plans were from what I understand.
Will the council’s building control officers (or whatever they are called) be down there tomorrow over-seeing the works too or is it just down to the Civic Society and members of the public to pop along and keep a watchful eye out ? How long do they expect the work to take?
If anything does happen or concerns are raised by the ‘watchers’ the council offices are closed until Monday.
Not that I’m being cynical of course and I’m sure everything will be fine but there have been instances in the past where works start on a weekend then disaster ‘accidentally’ happens.
Isn’t “removal of a collapsing gable end wall” demolition ? As it will never be reinstated this is the beginning of the end for this building……..
The Ship Inn “unexpectedly and suddenly collapsed” necessitating its immediate demolition when an electrician allegedly was doing little more than fiddling with some internal wiring in what was later termed a “soft internal strip-out”. Goodness knows what will happen when someone lays a hand on Garnett’s cabinet works.
What happened is that, as planned, a chimney that’s probably not been pointed since it was built, because of difficulty of access, and was dangerously above a property with public access, has been taken down safely. Access gained from a truck mounted access platform hired by the site owner for the day. Industrial school (which otherwise would have been demolished to get access) may yet be saved.