Bath Press Building, Bath

The Bath Press was an old printing factory that was being demolished in order to be redeveloped. A planning restriction was put in place due to the heritage of the building that stated the façade of the building had to remain in place.

We set up the job by initially installing retro targets on aluminium plates along the the façade at approximately 10m intervals. These had to be positioned precisely in accordance to the scaffolding underpinning plan in order for us to have a line of sight from each set up, each week we carried out the monitoring.

We initialised the survey by having three set up points along the opposing pavement, this allowed us to survey the four retro targets at a perpendicular angle insuring the highest of accuracy was maintained throughout the exercise.

Results were published in a tabled format displaying movement either towards the road or away from it as the demolition progressed. For further reassurance, tell tale plates were placed over any present large cracks along the façade to also monitor.

The demolition started at one end and worked along the old factory removing the structure behind, it was evident within the results that there was minimal movement as this took place. Once all of the old factory was removed, we monitored the façade for a further period of time to ensure that the underpinning scaffolding was holding the face of the building sufficiently.