THE PHOENIX RISES T
he Dartmouth fire of 2010 has left a long and difficult legacy for the businesses that were affected. The buildings have been off limits to the community for more than 18 months and this has left a gaping hole in the economic life of the town that has made life hard for many.
But in the last two months things have been changing and the build- ings and the businesses affected have been opening and starting to trade again. Although some things are not going to return to the way they were before – Singer & Singer are not going to return to their orig- inal offices in Fairfax Place but rent them out for example – it marks a return of near normality for many affected by the fire. It’s a hugely positive move for the town and a move back towards
normality for the businesses themselves, following two years of stress, uncertainty and worry.
They now want to move on and start to rebuild their businesses. Lea Humphreys
Lea Humphreys has taken on the responsibility for much of the rebuild on the Smith Street side of the building complex. Taking on the contracts has been a huge chal- lenge for him and his team, but one that he said he found extremely rewarding. “Before we started any building work we had to remove 300 tonnes of rubble – which made it difficult to plan before we started! It’s actually been quite a quick job if you think we’ve only been working on it for about 10 months. There have been a lot of sleepless nights as we’ve come up against challenges – but I’m delighted with how my team and I have handled the job.
“The logistics have been the main challenge: I had one person working full time for me before this build began, but at times there have been 15 or 20 men on site here. This is a huge site: two big buildings spread across four floors – if you add to that the conservation angle it has not been a normal job – but a very satisfying one.
“I’ve enjoyed the chal- lenge and taking on the variety of work we’ve needed to do: we’ve had to retain original features to ensure the building is as historically correct as possible and that has meant working around old beams, using lime plaster and actually rebuilding walls in a way they would have been built originally, even if the wall we were replacing was NOT built like that!
“For me personally I am pleased I could exploit my own skills to do work: the roof on Fairfax Place I did myself with Jake Stoyle – it was a complex job with a large amount of intricate work. I will enjoy walking past that in years to come and thinking: Jake and I built that together with our own hands. “Normally when you build something you are creating something new, or changing an old building in a sig- nificant way. But in this job we were trying to give back something to a lot of people – people who had experienced something terrible, losing their home or their business. We’ve not been building something, we’ve been handing back something people thought they’d lost. For that reason I’ve been pleased to see the build coming together so well.”
contd. over
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