A team of six structural engineers and twelve labourers began installing emergency steel shores and timber bracing to the eastern load-bearing wall of the Harbourfront Parade warehouse this morning, five days after Helen Draper of Hallam & Stroud declared the wall’s factor of safety “inadequate” and recommended immediate intervention.

The work, which is expected to take three days, involves the installation of fourteen adjustable steel props against the interior face of the wall, with timber spreader beams distributing the load across the floor slab. The exterior face will receive four buttress shores anchored to concrete pads being poured today.

Draper, who is directing the operation, arrived at 6:30 AM. By 8 AM, the first four interior props were in place.

“The wall is not in imminent danger of collapse,” she said, addressing this newspaper during a brief pause in operations. “But the margin between standing and not standing has been reduced by years of water infiltration to a degree that I am not comfortable leaving unaddressed for another week. That is what ‘inadequate factor of safety’ means in practical terms.”

The warehouse — one of seventy-two vacant commercial properties assessed during the Docklands safety audit — was found to have sustained four to five years of water infiltration through its eastern elevation. Spalling brickwork, deteriorated mortar joints, and visible displacement of the wall’s upper courses were documented in Draper’s assessment.

The building is owned by Greystone Development Ltd, whose sole director, Vincent Drury, has been linked to the certificate forgery scheme uncovered during the audit. Edmond Crayle, solicitor for the firm, filed an appeal with the Municipal Tribunal against the 2.35-million-florin penalty assessed under the vacant building levy. The tribunal hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Chief Municipal Engineer Dorothea Kinnear visited the site this morning at 9:15 AM. She confirmed that the preliminary audit report will be presented to the full council tomorrow.

“The report covers all seventy-two properties,” she said. “Eighteen irregularities. This building is the most serious, but it is not the only one that requires attention.”

The report, which this newspaper understands runs to forty-seven pages, will recommend a mandatory annual inspection regime for all vacant commercial properties within the Docklands audit zone — an area stretching from Greystone Wharf to Harrowgate Pier. If adopted, it would be the first such requirement in Bobington.

Adjacent properties on Harbourfront Parade have been inspected as a precaution. Two were found to have minor damp penetration consistent with their age and condition. Neither requires emergency intervention.

Draper said the shoring operation is a stabilisation measure, not a repair. “Once the shores are in, the wall is safe,” she said. “But the building will still need significant structural work — probably a full eastern wall rebuild — before it can be occupied. That is a matter for the owner and the council to resolve.”

The steel props being installed today weigh approximately 180 kilograms each and can support up to 25 tonnes of compressive load. They were brought by flatbed from Hallam & Stroud’s depot in Thornhill shortly after dawn.

Harbourfront Parade remains open to pedestrian and vehicle traffic, though the pavement directly in front of the building has been closed and hoarded. Passers-by this morning paused to watch the work.

“It’s been empty for years,” said one resident, who declined to give his name. “Nice to see someone paying attention to it.”