Bureaucracy gone mad

The modern demolition contractor is expected to be a demolition expert, an environmental scientist, a legal analyst, an HR professional, and a PR officer all at once.

We live in an age where it’s easier to demolish a tower block than to navigate the regulatory minefield leading up to it. I’ve been around this game over thirty years, and if you think the walls are what stand in the way, think again. It’s the wall of red tape. And it's getting thicker by the day.

There was a time — not saying it was perfect — but there was a time when if a structure was unstable, unsafe, or unwanted, you’d size it up, brief the crew, fire up the gear, and do the job. Now? Now you have to conduct a pre-demolition audit, followed by an asbestos survey, a bat survey, an ecological impact study, noise impact assessment, vibration risk assessment, dust control plan, waste management plan, heritage consultation, traffic management plan, community engagement report, and I shit you not — a “considerate constructor” pledge.

And that’s before you’ve lifted so much as a clipboard.

I’m not against rules. Let’s be clear. Safety? Absolutely. Protect the environment? Of course. Respect the neighbours? Sure, as long as they’re not the ones who phoned in the complaint because our excavator made a beep-beep noise at 8:01 am.

But the sheer volume, the duplication, the contradiction — that’s where it’s gone mad. It’s not guidance anymore, it’s a Kafkaesque-maze with no exit and three different sets of instructions, all marked “mandatory.”

Let me give you an example. You want to touch asbestos — or even think about it — you’d better have a thorough understanding of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. Not optional. But also make sure you’re compliant with CDM 2015 — that’s the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations — because designers have to account for asbestos risk even if they never touch the site. And don't forget the HSE's 92-page ACOP (Approved Code of Practice), which isn’t technically law… but ignore it and see what happens when the inspector shows up.

And yes, you need a demolition plan under BS 6187:2011. That’s a British Standard. But also a fire risk assessment under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and if you so much as break a floor slab that’s near a watercourse, you’re now under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016.

You’re halfway through reading one document when another guidance drops. “Update to guidance on Site Waste Management Plans,” it says. Wasn’t that repealed? Oh yes — in 2013. But guidance still exists, so you'd better "voluntarily comply" — because heaven help you if you don't, and something goes wrong.

You’re expected to be demolition experts, environmental scientists, legal analysts, HR professionals, and PR officers all at once. All while trying not to drop a chimney stack through someone’s living room.

And the irony? Half of it overlaps. You've got the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which underpins everything, but then you’ve got the Work at Height Regulations 2005 saying the exact same thing — don’t fall off stuff — only now with more checklists. The PUWER regs — Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations — overlap with LOLER — Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations. One says check your machines. The other says check your lifting. So you do both. Twice. Then document it. Twice.

Every site induction is now a three-hour PowerPoint marathon. We’re not even inducted into the job anymore. We’re inducted into the paperwork about the job. I watched a lad nod off during the bit about hand-arm vibration syndrome; only to be woken up in time to sign the form saying he’d understood it.

And don't get me started on the method statements. Used to be a couple of pages — "here’s how we’ll do it, here’s who’s doing it, here’s how we stay safe." Now? It's a fifty-page epic with maps, appendices, risk matrices, colour-coded flowcharts and a glossary at the back. For knocking down a two-storey pub.

I’m convinced there's a team somewhere whose job it is to invent new regulations just to keep themselves in work. They sit around a table thinking, “What if we add a clause about rare moss?” “Brilliant, put it under subsection 4b(ii) of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Notification Act.” And another poor sod ends up standing in the rain waiting for a site ecologist to give us the all-clear because someone spotted a newt near a skip.

Can’t we simplify this? Surely some of these rules could be combined? Do we really need six separate documents to say, “Don’t make too much dust?” Or three overlapping plans for vehicle movement, people movement, and machinery access, when they all deal with the same 10-metre stretch of road?

Half of what we fill in now is just to cover ourselves in case someone sues. It’s not about safety anymore. It’s about liability. Risk assessments that read like novels, not because the risk is real, but because if you don’t list the risk of someone tripping over a pigeon feather, some lawyer will say, “Ah-ha! Negligence!”

The worst part? The people writing these rules? They’re not on-site. They never have been. They’re in suits, in offices, sipping oat milk lattes while they write the 18th draft of “Guidance Note on Inclusive Language in Toolbox Talks.” Meanwhile, you’re knee-deep in shit and rubble trying to figure out if today’s site welfare requirements have changed again because the toilet paper dispenser isn’t compliant with ISO 9001 anymore.

It’s not that we want a free-for-all. We care. We really do. We want to do it right. We want our workers to be safe, the neighbours happy, the job clean, the impact minimal. But it has to be workable. Understandable. Human.

Because right now, it’s not.

Right now, it feels like we’re building cathedrals of compliance just to knock down an old warehouse.

You spend more time doing forms than operating machinery. More time reading guidance notes than managing the team. And the thing is, that’s not just a waste of time. That’s a waste of knowledge, a waste of experience, and a waste of momentum.

Let the experts do their job. Just make the rules make sense. Combine what can be combined. Get rid of what’s outdated. Trust us a little.

Because if I see one more document with the phrase “should, where reasonably practicable”, I swear — the only thing getting demolished will be my will to live.