This Sunday will see Leicester’s New Walk Centre brought down into a huge pile of rubble during a controlled demolition.
The former headquarters of Leicester City Council will use a method which will collapse the two towers within their own footprint, and means the buildings can be demolished, the surrounding area cleaned and the roads and businesses re-opened within the same day.
The firm in charge of the demolition, Birmingham based DSM have created an animation of what will happen.
An exclusion zone will be in place on Sunday 22nd February between 6am and 6pm, with the area being evacuated from 8am.
The exclusion zone includes an area bordered by Upper Brown Street, Chancery Street and part of Pocklingtons Walk, part of Market Street including the Fenwick store, Wellington Street, Park Street, and the bottom section of New Walk from approximately Holy Cross Church.
The zone will extend across New Walk to King Street at its junction with Marquis Street, before crossing Duke Street, Mill Street, and Welford Road near Bannatyne’s gym. It will continue to the rear of buildings on the western side of Welford Road, York Road and behind Newarke Street Car Park, which will be closed for the demolition.
Letters have been sent out to residents and businesses explaining what will happen on the day.
The exact time of demolition will be decided by the contractors on the day, and will not be advertised.
Billy Young, contracts manager spoke of the safety on the day, “The overarching aim on the day is public safety, around the zone we actually employ Leicestershire police on the day so we will have 30 police officers as high level support”
“there’s probably a security cordon of around 90 people actually around the zone, so that actually keeps the properties inside the zone safe and stops anybody getting into the zone”
There will be no provision for members of the public to watch the demolition, although people are welcome to watch from outside the exclusion area.
People evacuated from the exclusion zone will be able to watch on a big screen at Leicester Tigers’ Welford Road ground.
