Open or closed? NFDC’s latest ‘snapshot’

The United Kingdom’s National Federation of Demolition Contractors (NFDC) has launched an online survey of members in a bid to find out the impact of the Coronavirus on demolition operations.

Up to and including Wednesday April 8, almost 60% of those contacted had responded, reflecting the views of more than 80 contractors operating across the UK.

The results from those respondents are as follows:

• 15% of members said their sites are open
• 42.5% said all sites are closed
• 42.5% said some sites are open and some are closed.

The NFDC, which intends to feed the results of the survey back to other key industry bodies, commented: “It is important to note that of the 42.5% of demolition contractors who say ‘some sites are open and some sites are closed’, the reality of their operational status varies significantly and what constitutes ‘partially operational’ represents a vast spectrum of positions at this time.

“For example, within this same category, one member states ‘95% of our sites are closed’ and another states ‘we are operating at 85% currently.’

“Another member comments: ‘Approximately 25% of our sites are open, non-essential sites or sites our client has closed are now on hold while essential works or sites which our clients have not closed remain open’.

“Understandably, this is a moving target as some sites which were closed have now been reopened, and other members are electing to close sites down on a daily basis. These statistics can therefore only be viewed as a rough snapshot of the impact of COVID-19 on NFDC demolition contractors and may become outdated very quickly.”