Gone to the Dogs

Uncategorised,General

In the 1860s, Mrs Mary Tealby opened the Temporary Home for Lost & Starving Dogs in Holloway, North London.   She promised to never turn away an animal in need.   In 1871 she moved to the world famous site in Battersea where they have housed over a millions dogs since then.  

However, the Victorian site, with some of the kennels dating back to 1907, has not stood the test of time, and is being dramatically updated and redeveloped. There will soon be four new blocks of 14 individual kennels each with dedicated sleeping, eating and playing areas, complete with under-floor heating, 12 outdoor exercise pens, and a new reception.

The site is a hive of activity, with construction of the new blocks urgently taking place alongside the demolition of the old gas works.  This includes the removal of a huge gasometer on the Nine Elms site, which lies directly behind the main reception building, to make way for the next stage of the redevelopment.

As well as the construction work, there is a massive amount of ancillary work simultaneously taking place, and Pirtek Greenwich is often on site to maintain the myriad of construction machinery.   On one of his many visits, MSST Lee Dobson came to the aid of Real Time Engineering, who was installing a new drainage system that would link into the existing water pipes and the new water tanks for the kennel blocks.

Work had ground to a halt on this particular project, when the JCB 8050RTS mini digger on hire from CW Plant damaged its quick hitch hose preventing the operator removing 50 metres of concrete in the way of the new pipeline.

Navigating the near static London traffic, through some little known shortcuts, Dobson was on site well inside the 1 hour ETA schedule to be faced with the excavator wedged into a tiny space under a railway arch.

Undaunted, especially knowing the urgency behind the repair, as it was on one of the access routes onto the site, Dobson had the new .75m, 1/4″ hose manufactured, installed and tested in exactly 11 minutes after arriving on site.

The client was suitably impressed at the instant repair.   “They said it was urgent and needed it done in a hurry. And they got what they asked for,” Lee Dobson concludes.   “But it wasn’t just done quickly, it was done properly.”