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Alan Edge is playing a pivotal part in flattening Christchurch. Brusque and tough talking, the Southern Demolition and Salvage owner has become a Christchurch identity in a long and at times controversial career. Times now are good for Edge. Business is booming. His company is in good health and Edge’s status in the teak-tough demolition game is on the rise.
In a Mainlander exclusive Martin van Beynen profiles, in warts-and-all fashion, Christchurch’s Demolition Man.
Alan Edge, the owner of Southern Demolition and Salvage Ltd, is not one to watch his language, even in the refined company of gentlemen from The Press.
“Im not getting a photo with f….. doors and shit mate. F….. wake your ideas up or f… off. It’s either with timber or f… off. Simple as that. I’ve got short man’s disease so I don’t get f….. around very often. All right.”
Your reporter and photographer are in Southern Demolition and Salvage’s enormous, former railway warehouse on the south side of the railway tracks in Waltham. Stacks of salvaged timber rise in neat rows from the concrete floor and, in one corner, Sleepyhead mattresses, from the former Copthorne Hotel in Colombo St, are piled in a big heap.
We were looking for a suitable backdrop for a photo of Christchurch’s demolition tsar which prompted the outburst.
Edge, 59, is not that short, actually, and with his hawkish blue eyes, outdoor tan, sharp haircut, rugby background and reputation of being a hard man in a tough industry, he should not be too worried about being “f….. around” as he puts it.
Fortunately the interview proceeds in much better humour and the prickly, belligerent, foul- mouthed image that emerged among the stacks of timber is replaced by a colourful businessman, who, by his own account, is a model of enterprise, integrity and goodheartedness.
This, for instance, is how, he says, he manages his staff.
“I’ve had staff who have been with me for over 20 years. We treat them with the utmost respect. We want them to buy houses; we want them to have mortgages and kids. It’s a bit like rugby. If you have an expectation you have to live up to it. If you have a mortgage you have to take the money home each week. We like to make sure our men do very well.”
And his word is his bond.
“If I say Im going to do something, I’ll do it, end of story. I won’t tell you lies. I’m not a good liar because I can’t f…… remember so I don’t lie.”
He even feels quite generous to the outsiders who have come into his territory for earthquake- related work.
“It’s good,” he says, although he can’t help observing, without too many tears, that some are going broke.
Edge, who is now president of the The New Zealand Demolition Asbestos Association, admits the industry is not for the faint- hearted but he doesn’t buy the contention that the industry is full of cowboys.
“The big ones are pretty smart operators. It’s the only way you grow. It’s a bit like a team game. The subbies have got to be good. If you are a cowboy you don’t last. People don’t grow because they are not street smart. They don’t look after the f…… joker next to them.”
He also says he has conducted an “open door” policy with the residents living near the much criticised Owaka Pit in Hornby, which has been owned by his company, Owaka Holdings, since 2008.
“The gate is open seven days a week. The council is in there once or twice a week. Why would I be so f…… stupid to do something wrong in there?”
Where hiccups have emerged in his career, they were not of his making, he says.
The problems at the Owaka Pit were created by previous operators and lack of council monitoring. He didn’t know the site was in serious breach of consents when the company bought it, he says.
“It was kept pretty f…… hush hush,” he says.
When his first demolition company (Southern Demolition) went into liquidation in 1998, it was not his fault but his partner’s, he says.
When, only a month ago, the 10-storey former Copthorne Hotel building in Colombo St pancaked, while a Southern Demolition digger driver was using the machine to nibble away at one of the floors of the building, the company was not to blame, Edge says.
The building was structurally weak and the company was working to a demolition plan.
“We have some very embarrassed engineers, I can tell you that,” he says.
A massive fire in a medium density fibreboard (MDF) pile, which burnt for six weeks earlier this year at the Owaka Pit, producing a pall of smoke which hung over a large part of West Christchurch, was badly handled, he says. The smoke sometimes contained formaldehyde in concentrations of 87 times the recommended limit for an eight- hour workplace.
Residents have been told to wash vegetable and fruit picked from their gardens and Southern Demolition workers must take precautions working with the residue material.
The Fire Service concluded the fire started by spontaneous combustion.
Firefighters should have let the fire burn out, says Edge. By squirting water on the blaze the board opened up and released formaldehyde from the material.
Edgy, as his enemies and friends call him, certainly sounds the goods but people who have known him for many years, in business and sport, issue a word of caution.
They did not want to be named for fear of getting in a legal scrap with him and say that while he is street smart and often generous, loyal and a true “fun guy” who loves a drink – he has five drink- drive convictions – he has a less attractive side.
Edge certainly seems to attract more than his fair share of trouble.
For instance, fires have plagued Southern Demolition and Owaka Holdings over the years.
The fire at the Owaka Pit which started in April was not the first at the site. Another huge blaze of materials at the pit in 2011 required helicopters to help douse it.
Southern Demolition’s yard at the former Islington Freezing Works also had a large MDF and timber fire in February, 2010. Two years before, in July 2008, a fire started by arsonists at the former Tip Top icecream factory in Blenheim Rd, which Edge’s company was demolishing, sent thick black smoke from burning polystyrene into the air. Just about every fire appliance in Christchurch was needed at the fire.
“Little Lucifer loves to see the fire engines coming,” Edge says, of the fires.
Residents living around the Owaka Pit have fought a long battle against activities there although they concede its management has improved under Owaka Holdings.
However, they say improvements promised by Edge have not happened fast enough or gone far enough.
Awatea Residents Association secretary Kay Steiller says Edge has won few friends among residents despite his promises.
The residents note that incidents such as a digger working at the pit hitting overhead powerlines as an example of less than exemplary management. The incident in October last year caused a 20-minute power outage affecting 14,000 customers.
The chairman of the Riccarton/ Wigram Community Board, Mike Mora, says Edge’s open door policy did not extend to letting him attend a meeting at the Owaka Pit over the fire. He tried to attend but Edge called the police.
Edge says Mora was making a nuisance of himself at a meeting that did not concern him.
“After dealing with him for many years I have learned he will always push the boundaries,” Mora says.
Only this week, Mora claims, he followed a Southern Demolition truck from the company’s Islington yard, where it had loaded burned MDF material, to the Owaka Pit where the material was unloaded.
The council’s enforcement division is now dealing with the matter.
Edge says he has agreed to stop trucking the material from the Islington yard to the Owaka Pit but he was only storing it there until it went to Kate Valley.
The Environment Court in July, recognising Owaka Holdings had not caused the unchecked overfilling of the site, ordered Owaka to reduce the height of the stockpiles, to construct bunds and carry out landscaping, and limited the amount of fill in a pond at the site.
The previous month, Owaka Holdings was fined $18,000 for dumping general rubbish into the pond with Christchurch City Council prosecutor Kelvin Reid saying, in court, that the offending had overtones of contempt and carelessness. Counsel for the company said the dumping of unsorted material was unintentional.
Southern Demolition was also in the news just after the February earthquake for reducing to rubble a landmark stone church on the corner of Brougham and Colombo streets owned by the Sydenham Heritage Trust. Although initially the Christchurch City Council and Civil Defence denied giving their permission it later transpired that the Emergency Operations Centre had authorised the demolition, although not through the correct process.
In any event, today Edge is feeling a little cocky. Southern Demolition has done about $3 million of work for just one customer, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, since the earthquakes. His black Range Rover is parked outside (he no longer drinks and drives), his firm has grown, business is good and last weekend at Rangiora he drove his horse, Kellyrox, which is trained by his brother, Neil, at Weedons, to his first amateur win of the year.
Racing goes back to his family in Rakaia where his father, Noel, was a well known agricultural contractor.
Asked to leave Waitaki Boys High after he turned 16, Edge worked in the family business before going out on his own when he was 19. By that time he already owned his own home.
After his parents bought the West Melton pub – which he bought with brother Neil and mate Peter Winchester last year – Edge did a stint in bar management.
After his spell behind the bar, Edge bought a burger bar in Papanui Rd and one of his biggest customers for fish and chips was Lancaster Park and its after-match functions.
The burger bar was sold and he went back to contracting in 1987.
He then worked for Canterbury demolition and contracting stalwart Evan Frew before they fell out and he formed Southern Demolition with a rugby mate.
Edge says he was “working my arse off” in the field while his partner did the paperwork.
The company collapsed in 1998 and times were tough for awhile.
“I learnt 50 different ways to make baked beans.”
By 2002, he had started Southern Demolition and Salvage Ltd, of which he is the only director.
His group of companies now employs about 60 people and has about $10m worth of machinery. The Owaka pit facility, which he owns with scrap metal dealer Tony Steer, is worth another $10m, he says.
Edge is well connected throughout Christchurch and other parts of New Zealand through rugby.
A useful halfback and first five he played senior rugby for Christchurch club Old Boys – he was barred from the club after a scrap in the clubhouse – and the Sydenham club until he was 35, and represented Mid Canterbury for about eight years.
He is well acquainted with All Blacks coach Steve Hansen through rugby and racing, he says.
He began a coaching career as soon as he finished playing and with fellow head coach police Detective Bob Kerr took a talented Sydenham side to the Christchurch Club Championship three seasons in a row. He gained another championship with coach John Ashworth and stepped down in 1999.
”I just liked the camaraderie and the team aspects. If you get good people in a group everyone grows and its self-discipline so you get rid of the riffraff pretty quick. We had some pretty strict rules. Don’t turn up, no play. Don’t care who you are, whether you’re a f….. All Black or not. Everyone was equal. We had a great camaraderie. Lot of the guys were here all the time.”
”I made a huge amount of friends in rugby. It definitely helped in business. Great people.”
The earthquakes have caused a growth spurt for his business, he says, but he has been wary of expanding too much.
”We made a conscious decision to not go f….. stupid. We managed our resources. We worked our machinery more efficiently and we bought a couple of diggers. We shared the workload around and we were f….. humming.”
Making money in demolition, he says, is a lot about how you manage your waste.
He has created a sawmilling division, chips wood for dairy sheds, grinds gib into fertiliser, crushes the concrete and recycles steel.
The side of the business he most enjoys is adding value to whatever he touches.
”I can pull hardwood beams out of a building for next to nothing. I put an 8-metre beam in my yard and its worth two to three thousand dollars. We dress and cut. Architraves. You name it, we make it. I can’t stand the thought of carting stuff to Burwood and chucking it in a heap.”
He has little sympathy for demolition contractors who have recently had trucks and other gear destroyed by apparently professional arsonists.
”You got to offend somebody pretty bad for someone to go after your gear. They haven’t conducted themselves in the right way.”
As Edge sees your reporter out he reinforces his belief in the importance of truth telling in a laudable effort to encourage newspaper accuracy.
”Tell the truth,” he says, ”and you won’t get into trouble.”
It sounds like good advice.
– © Fairfax NZ News
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