IN Brief:
- Ainscough dismantled a roughly 52-metre, 70-tonne telecoms tower in three sections at a former EE site in Sunderland.
- A 650-tonne Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 main crane worked with a 500-tonne LTM 1500-8.1 tailing crane.
- Previously hidden underground telecoms chambers prevented the planned outrigger setup, requiring revised VarioBase and VarioBallast configurations.
Ainscough Crane Hire has completed a constrained heavy-lift operation in Sunderland after hidden underground telecommunications chambers forced engineers to revise the planned crane setup once the former EE site was cleared.
The telecoms tower stood approximately 52 metres high, measured around four metres in diameter, and weighed about 70 tonnes. Rather than remove it in one piece, the lifting and demolition teams divided the structure into three sections, each weighing approximately 25 tonnes.
A Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 mobile crane rated at 650 tonnes acted as the main crane, while a 500-tonne Liebherr LTM 1500-8.1 operated as the tailing crane. The arrangement allowed the sections to be supported, controlled, and moved through the demolition sequence rather than relying on one hook to manage a long section as its orientation changed.
The lift had been planned for months, with Ainscough working alongside Circet and the demolition contractor as the demolition methodology developed. That preparation was tested after vegetation and other obstructions were cleared from the site.
Underground telecommunications chambers were discovered beneath areas intended for the main crane’s outriggers, invalidating part of the original setup. The lifting team could not simply place the crane over those structures and assume they would carry the concentrated reactions generated during the operation.
Mobile-crane capacity is often misunderstood because the nominal tonnage attached to a machine is only one part of its working limit. Actual lifting capability depends on boom length, radius, configuration, counterweight, outrigger deployment, ground condition, slew position, and numerous other factors.
A 25-tonne mast section can therefore justify a crane rated many times higher where the working radius is substantial or where the site prevents the machine being positioned in its ideal configuration.
Ainscough used Liebherr’s VarioBase and VarioBallast functions to revise the setup. VarioBase allows individual outrigger positions to be taken into account rather than relying only on standard symmetrical deployment, while variable ballast radius provides additional flexibility around the available footprint.
Those systems expand the engineering options available to the lifting team, but they do not remove the need to calculate the lift. Each revised configuration still has to satisfy the crane’s permissible loads and geometry, while the ground beneath each support must be capable of carrying the resulting reactions.
The hidden chambers demonstrate why ground information matters as much as the load itself. Buried ducts, cellars, old foundations, drainage structures, voids, and previously excavated ground can all affect heavy crane setup while remaining invisible from the surface.
On a large clear site, the simplest answer may be to move the machine. The Sunderland location offered much less freedom because earthworks, dense vegetation, buried infrastructure, site boundaries, the mast itself, and the need to position a second crane competed for the same limited footprint.
The tailing operation added further coordination. As each long mast section was cut free, the main crane carried the principal load while the second machine controlled the lower part of the section as its orientation changed.
Load share between the two cranes does not remain constant throughout such a movement. It changes with geometry and centre of gravity, requiring both operators to follow an agreed sequence and maintain communication as the section is brought down.
The demolition cut also has to correspond precisely with the lifting plan. If steel remains connected after the cranes begin to take the expected load, forces can rise unexpectedly; if a section releases earlier than planned, it can move before both machines are correctly loaded and positioned.
Rigging, cutting, crane movement, exclusion zones, and communications therefore form one operation rather than separate demolition and lifting activities. A change to any part of the sequence can alter assumptions elsewhere in the plan.
Ground-bearing pressure remains critical throughout. Outrigger reactions can change as a crane slews, even though the physical support pads remain in the same location, so assessment has to consider the most demanding planned configuration rather than only the machine at setup.
The Sunderland operation also shows the value of maintaining contingency within engineered lifting plans. Detailed planning does not mean assuming that every site condition will match the survey; it means having enough verified information, equipment capability, and technical competence to deal with discoveries without improvising beyond safe limits.
Ainscough operates nationally from 30 locations with a fleet of more than 400 cranes, including heavy-lift capability up to 800 tonnes. Fleet scale provided access to suitable equipment for Sunderland, but the decisive factor on this project was the ability to configure the selected machine around a site that turned out to differ from the original assumptions.
The mast was ultimately removed in three controlled sections using the revised setup. The most instructive part of the project occurred before the first completed lift: an obstacle that could not be seen during initial planning was identified, the intended outrigger positions were rejected, and the methodology was recalculated around the ground conditions actually present.
That is the less visible part of heavy lifting. The crane may dominate the photographs, but the engineering success is usually decided in the ground assessment, configuration, sequencing, and calculations completed before the hook begins to move.