The Stage 2 Seat: Giving Demolition a Place at the Concept Design Table

Developers rarely set out to procure demolition badly. They follow a familiar sequence: secure the site, appoint an architect, obtain consent, then find someone to take the building down. By the time a demolition contractor is invited to price, most of the decisions that determine how the building comes down - and what the enabling works cost - have already been taken.

The price of arriving late

On a tight urban site, the first useful contribution a demolition contractor makes is rarely a number. It is a question: what is actually inside the building, and who is on the other side of the wall? Those two questions shape access, phasing, survey scope and programme long before a machine arrives. Put them at RIBA Stage 5 and the only available answer is a price. Put them at Stage 2 and they can still be designed out.

The RIBA Plan of Work 2020 places concept design at Stage 2. It is where the brief is tested, the sustainability strategy is set, the procurement route is chosen and the project risk register is first populated. It is also, in practice, the last moment at which a structural form or a basement depth can be changed without a cascade of redesign.

Three things a demolition adviser settles early

An early appointment does not need to be elaborate. A pre-construction services agreement, a two-stage tender with an enabling works package, or a paid advisory commission all achieve the same end: a contractor with site experience reviewing drawings while they are still drawings.

Three outputs matter most. First, a buildability view on the existing structure - how it stands up, what holds it, and which elements must remain until others have gone. Second, a working assumption on the waste arisings, from which the site layout and the haul route follow. Third, a neighbour and boundary strategy, which is usually more about geometry than public relations.

Surveys commissioned to answer something

Too many sites commission a refurbishment and demolition asbestos survey because a checklist demands one, not because anyone has asked what the answer will change. Under HSG264 the survey must be intrusive and building-specific, and its findings determine the licensed or non-licensed route, the enclosure strategy and the duration of the strip-out.

A demolition adviser reviewing survey scopes at Stage 2 will typically press for a services tracing survey, a structural appraisal by an engineer familiar with the era of construction, a topographical survey accurate enough to set exclusion zones, and a desk study covering unexploded ordnance where the location warrants it. Ecological constraints - nesting birds under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, roosting bats under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 - and any archaeological condition are best identified before the concept design leans on a particular footprint.

The distinction matters commercially. A survey commissioned at Stage 2 informs the design. The same survey commissioned at Stage 4 usually generates a variation.

Waste classification is a design decision

The waste hierarchy is not an abstraction when a site has limited room. Whether arisings are reused onsite under a materials management plan, crushed for aggregate, sent for recovery or consigned to landfill determines the number of vehicle movements, the size of the compound and the noise and dust envelope the local authority will be asked to accept.

Classification also carries legal weight. Hazardous waste must be identified and segregated; landfill acceptance criteria require testing; the duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires an audit trail from arising to final destination. A contractor involved at concept stage can advise which of these strands the design should avoid creating, and which are unavoidable and must be programmed.

Party walls and the boundary question

At Stage 2 the site boundary, the adjoining ownerships and the likely basement or foundation depth are all still open. That is precisely when party wall strategy should be fixed - not because notices can be served early, but because the geometry that triggers them can still be adjusted. A basement that grazes an adjoining foundation line may be viable with a different retaining solution; discovering that at tender stage usually means either a redesign or an unpriced risk.

Adjoining owners, managing agents and, on larger estates, freeholders with leaseholder consent requirements all take time to identify. Title research belongs at concept stage, not in the week before mobilisation.

Utility isolations sit on the critical path

Distribution network operators, gas transporters and water undertakers work to their own timetables. Disconnections, diversions, temporary builders' supplies and metering arrangements can each absorb weeks or months of lead time, and they frequently sit at the very start of the programme. An adviser who has managed those processes can flag which services need to be traced, which need to be diverted before demolition and which can be capped and left. On a constrained site, that single conversation can protect an entire quarter's programme.

Planning conditions harden faster than people expect

Demolition method statements, construction management plans, traffic management arrangements, restricted working hours and section 61 prior consents under the Control of Pollution Act 1974 are all easier to draft around a method that has been tested than around one that has not. Once a condition is worded with fixed hours and fixed phasing, amending it means a non-material amendment application or a section 73 route - cost, delay and, occasionally, a fresh consultation.

Early involvement allows the applicant to propose conditions that reflect how the site will genuinely be worked. That is a better outcome for the developer and, usually, for the neighbour.

Making the procurement model match the ambition

Advisory input has to be paid for, and the value case rests on delivering something specific: a demolition methodology, an outline sequence, a waste and logistics strategy, a party wall and boundary schedule, a risk register entry for each retained element. Those deliverables should be written into the appointment so they can be tested, not offered as goodwill.

The counter-argument - that early pricing reduces competitive tension - deserves a hearing. The usual answer is a two-stage process in which the first stage is competed on capability, methodology and overhead, and the second is opened to competition on the works packages. What is not defensible is a lowest-price tender issued against incomplete information, which simply transfers an unknown quantum of risk into a contingency that the developer ultimately funds.

A risk tool, not a trade

The wrecking ball is the least interesting part of a demolition contractor's offer. The real product is judgement about what will happen on site, delivered while the drawings are still soft enough to change. Developers who bring that judgement into Stage 2 tend to find that the enabling works stop being the part of the programme everyone worries about.