A building company with over 70 years’ experience has won the tender to demolish a Shrewsbury building badly damaged in an explosion.

Bensons, which has a head office in Bristol and a newly-launched division in Shrewsbury, has now started work on the site at the corner of Bridge Street and Smithfield Road.

Managing Director, Rob Hancocks, said: “We are very pleased to have been given the go-ahead to start work on site, and the demolition is expected to take around four weeks.

“It’s excellent news for our Shrewsbury team, but obviously we’re very aware that the explosion was an extremely serious incident which injured 12 people and closed parts of the town centre for several weeks.

“As the site is in such a sensitive position in the town, health and safety is paramount, and we have already extended the existing site hoardings into the Shrewsbury Hotel car park, but we are not planning any road closures.

“As a result of the nature of the surrounding area, we will be mostly demolishing the building by hand, and taking it down brick by brick rather than using heavy equipment.”

The Health and Safety Executive is currently trying to establish the cause of the explosion which happened on January 3.

Bensons is one of Bristol’s oldest building, contracting, and development companies, and was founded in 1939 as a family business. Shrewsbury businessmen Rob Hancocks and David Schofield took over day-to-day operational control in January 2009.

The company specialises in both commercial and residential property construction, development and maintenance with a special skill for renovating heritage buildings.

It is environmentally aware and is committed to all aspects of green, eco building techniques and materials.