Huge Blaze Calls For Emergency Response

Property Tectonics’ Managing Director, Trevor Mole took an early morning emergency call in Warsaw in Sunday morning October 2005 from DeVere’s "Greenall’s Causeway Distillery in Warrington is on fire". By lunchtime that day pt had mobilized the appropriate professional team and got heavy contractors plant on site to assist the emergency services. The team had to work alongside the fire brigade, the Health & Safety Executive, HM Revenue & Customs and the police. The fire raged for days and the distillery and bottling plant was completely destroyed. Owner DeVere Group looked to pt to get the operation back up and running as quickly as possible.

The Causeway Distillery is a major producer and bottler of gin and vodka which had operated on the same site for decades. The blaze, which destroyed the warehousing and bottling plant, caused millions of pounds worth of damage. Taking over 100 fire officers to extinguish, the fire led to road closures and an exclusion zone around the factory.

Property Tectonics was drafted in to manage the demolition and remediation of the plant and the construction of new concrete bases onto which two 50,000 litre storage tanks could be re-located.

Phil Leach, director at pt said: "With a combination of demolition and construction work involved, the job required a wide scope of services from pt including structural engineering, project management and health and safety expertise".

"There were several complex technical issues to contend with, as the area around the destroyed bottling plant was ankle-deep in flammable spirits and broken glass and the fire-damaged roof of the plant contained asbestos." "It was a testing time for everyone especially Greenall’s team but the partnership worked well and pt has been retained to date assisting the customer in the re-development of the distillery."