Watch Mick George pull down Cambridge office block Mount Pleasant House after huge pre-Christmas wrapping job

Octagonal building on Huntingon Road will become St Edmund's College accommodation

If you thought you had a lot of wrapping to do this Christmas, consider this job.

Construction industry firm Mick George wrapped the entire 42,000 square feet Mount Pleasant House office block as it began a careful demolition job on the 1970s building in Cambridge’s Huntingdon Road.

The Monarflex wrap was used to reduce the noise and dust from the site, and reduce the visual impact of the work, which is paving the way for redevelopment of the site into purpose-built accommodation for St Edmund’s College.

The octagonal-towered building was bought for £10.66million from the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

Howard Osborne LLP, a joint venture between family-owned property companies Howard Group and Osborne, will turn the multi-let office building and its 145 car parking spaces into four new blocks, centred around two south-facing courtyards.

Due to be ready for occupation in summer 2019 following an 18-month construction programme, the property will provide 199 en-suite student rooms and 74 studios for academic staff and post-graduates. There will be cycle storage for 306 bikes.

Huntingdon-based Mick George carried out a two-week mechanical demolition programme on the steel-frame building, which featured 5ft external cladding panels.

Special deconstruction and demolition techniques were used by the company as the site sits near to three corners of Huntingdon Road and is in close proximity to offices, homes, roads and education facilities.

The firm opted to deconstruct the top two floors, removing the panels by crane and exposing the bolts by removing the brick covering.

Once the weight was removed from the high-level section, the workers started the high-reach phase, cutting the steel frame with a demolition shear.

Mick George is now crushing the demolition arisings and preparing the piling mat.

William Jewson, spokesperson for Howard Osborne LLP, said: “The development will provide high quality graduate accommodation for St Edmund’s College in an ideal location at the same time as regenerating the Mount Pleasant site.’’

Michael George, contracts director at Mick George Ltd, added: “Cambridge is very much our homeland, so it is a pleasure to be working in partnership with another two family-owned local businesses, especially when community interest is genuinely a driving force behind their involvement with the project.

“Like ourselves, they have a vested interest in improving the infrastructure of the county of Cambridgeshire and gearing it towards future success.”