Follow up to earlier video about demolition. Here is the footage, in close up and slow-motion. The steel jaws grip the air conditioning unit, then pull it away from the wall behind Brentford High Street. As the unit breaks loose, the leads snap and you can see – and hear – an intense white spray being emitted.
After studying it carefully, local air conditioning engineer Lui Lui told us: "Is illegal to release air conditioning refrigerant to the atmosphere. Just from seeing how they took this unit and all the refrigerant that came out is not good. You need to have a F-GAS certificate to work with this kind of refrigerant and it needs to be reclaimed before being disconnected as it's bad for the atmosphere."
We informed local councillor Steve Curran, who is also leader of Hounslow council – which has just declared a Climate Emergency. He immediately said he was asking Ballymore – the developers who own the site – to deal with it this morning. Depending on the facts, the matter may go further.