The demolition company at the centre of the Didcot power station disaster boasted about their safety record and rocketing profits, it emerged today (Wed).
Coleman & Company Ltd recently wrote about how the demolition of Didcot power station – where four are now feared dead – was “progressing well”.
The company, based in Great Barr, Birmingham, added the work was being carried out to a “very high standard” with health and safety and risk aversion was “paramount at all times”.
Company accounts filed at the end of January reveal turnover at the firm had shot up 70 per cent from £17.8million to £30.3million.
Profits to the end of April last year were also up from £890,000 to £2.45million.
The firm is run by David Coleman who set the firm up in 1962. Today he is Group Chairman and runs the company with his son Mark, who is Managing Director.
The demolition firm, said the year had been “very successful”, highlighting its work at
Birmingham New Street Station and Didcot power station.
They wrote: “The Didcot power station demolition contract is progressing well and all technical challenges arising have been satisfactorily dealt with to a very high standard.
“Although the Didcot demolition has been the major contract during the year other projects have been carried out across a diversified range of industrial, complex and
standard demolition work.”
The company also wrote about how directors consider health and safety to be “of the utmost importance” in the operation of all aspects of the business.
It adds: “This area is constantly under review with ongoing investment to ensure that risks are minimised and controlled, the sophisticated drugs and alcohol policy being an excellent example”.
The company yesterday expressed their “great sadness” at the collapse of the boiler tower which has left one worker dead and three missing.
A spokesman said: “We can confirm that shortly after 4pm on Tuesday part of the boiler house at the former Didcot APower Station site in Oxfordshire collapsed.
“It is with great sadness that we understand that there has been one fatality, five people have been taken to hospital and three people are currently missing and unaccounted for.
“Our thoughts are with the families of all those involved in this tragedy.
“We will provide updates as we receive them.
“We are working with the emergency services who are currently on site to locate those missing and understand the cause of this collapse.”
Some workers arrived in tears when they turned up at the HQ in Birmingham yesterday.
