A huge demolition project is under way in Plymouth city centre as experts remove a five-storey office block to make way for a new hotel and student flats.
A specialist team from London-based Hill Demolition is about to start work at the imposing Mayflower House, in Mayflower Street, where the building will be torn down floor by floor in a three month operation.
The firm has worked on major demolition projects during the past 50 years, including many projects in the capital, removing Stoke on Trent’s tallest building and the dismantling of Hercules and Nimrod aeroplanes for the Ministry of Defence.
It also removed pre-fab post-war emergency housing in Plymouth in the 1960s and has now returned to the city to take down Mayflower House.
A planning application for a block containing 332 student bedrooms. 2,381sq m of offices and a 120-bed hotel has been submitted to Plymouth City Council.
But while that is being determined Hill Demolition has moved in and surrounded the vast block with scaffolding and fencing.
The firm is now simply awaiting approval of some aspects of is proposal for fencing but expects to start demolition soon.
Terry Hill, owner of Hill Demolition, explained how a crane will place a lifting machine on the roof which will in turn take each floor apart.
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“The lifting machine will break up the top floor and then come down floor by floor, down to the ground floor,” he said. “It’s not really difficult. We have been at it (demolition) a long time.”
The family firm, with Mr Hill’s grandson Tony Hill in charge of the Plymouth project, has worked nationwide and Mr Hill said: “We did work in Plymouth before, on the war-time pre-fabs, hundreds of them.”
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Meanwhile, plans for a replacement building have been submitted by Holder Mathias Architects - which has offices in London, Cardiff and the southern German city of Munich – for developer and investor Guildhouse 海角视频 Ltd.
Those companies were behind a previous plan for the site, granted permission in 2016 but which expired in 2018, for an 18-storey tower, sitting next door to the 23-floor Beckley Point skyscraper, the South West's largest building.
It would have contained 2,381sq m of offices, a 793sq m retail unit and 490 student rooms. But the new plan scraps the shop and about a third of the student bedrooms in favour of a hotel.
If it gains approval it will join a raft of potential new hotels in the city. Already there are plans for hotels in at least 11 other parts of Plymouth.
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Business Live's South West Business Reporter is William Telford. William has more than a decade's experience reporting on the business scene in Plymouth and the South West. He is based in Plymouth but covers the entire region.
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Plymouth’s student flat market is thought to be reaching saturation point as student numbers continue to fall. In recent years there has been a slew of student accommodation schemes, with three large blocks completed in 2018 and more on the way, including 500 at the redeveloped Derry’s former department store in the heart of the city centre.
But the decline in student numbers has led to job losses at the University of Plymouth.
As student flats fall out of favour with developers, hotels have replaced them. In 2018 there were already 11 sites with permission for hotel development in the city. And since then others have been suggested as possible sites for hotels.
It means Plymouth could be set to gain at least 1,000 hotel beds in addition to the 2,000 it already has. But experts stress Plymouth is short of hotel rooms and needs more.