Building Briefs - April 21st

• Ellen Lawson appointed head of business operations at Glampitect

The fast-growing Scottish start-up recently announced the launch of its Middle East operation in Dubai and the appointment of Miss Lawson to the new role comes amid ongoing expansion.

Promoted from office manager at the firm’s HQ at Lochside Place in Edinburgh, she takes on the key role as the firm continues to grow at pace with 15 new employees having joined in the last six months to help meet soaring demand.

Founded in August 2019, Glampitect is involved in more than 200 glamping projects across Britain, with the move into the Middle East the first phase of a planned global expansion.

Included in the new hires are teams of specialist design consultants, architects and planners, with the firm looking to further bolster its staffing in the months ahead.

• Smart Hub Lanarkshire will help future-proof manufacturing SMEs

A £900k state-of-the-art centre that will help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector to grow and prepare for the future is set to open in Motherwell later this month.

Smart Hub Lanarkshire - a partnership between North Lanarkshire Council, New College Lanarkshire (NCL) and the University of Strathclyde - will be home to a robotics and automation training facility and provide dedicated space for SMEs to meet, learn and access business support and academic expertise. The Hub will be located at New College Lanarkshire’s Motherwell Campus.

Scottish Government data shows there are over 575 manufacturing businesses in North Lanarkshire, employing more than 11,230 people and generating a turnover of £2.2 billion.

The Hub will offer a range of activities to support manufacturing SMEs within Lanarkshire and beyond, from one-to-one sessions to larger events.  It will deliver regular technology demonstration and training sessions including use of collaborative robots (co-bots), automation and 3D printing. It will raise awareness of how manufacturing SMEs can use robotics and automation, and help plan for modernisation and digitisation to improve efficiency, boost productivity and grow exports.

The Hub will ‘virtually’ open with a free-to-attend online launch event on April 30, where delegates will be able to meet the team, preview the robotics demonstration space, hear from automation experts and learn about the support available.

Initially the Hub will offer webinars and online demonstrations, with the aim of physically opening its doors in the summer.

The Hub is one of 12 projects to be awarded a share of £15.8m of funding from the Scottish Government through the Advancing Manufacturing Challenge Fund. The overall aim of the fund is to advance the manufacturing capabilities of Scottish SMEs and lead to long-term transformational change.

• Turf cutting at Hebridean bridge replacement

A turf cutting took place on Tuesday to mark a significant milestone in the provision of a replacement crossing for the residents of Bernera following the 7.5 tonne weight restriction being placed on the Bernera Bridge in August 2020.

The replacement steel trussed bridge structure is being provided by Mabey Bridge and this will sit on concrete abutments which are part of the civil engineering works being undertaken by Breedon Hebrides.

Construction work on the revised approaches and abutments will precede the delivery of the bridge elements, which will be assembled on site and “pushed” from the south abutment on the Bernera mainland to the north abutment on the Island of Bernera.

The installation is scheduled for June and completion of the crossing is currently scheduled for the end of July.

• Green light for new crossing on Westway in Arbroath

A new pedestrian crossing has been installed on Westway in Arbroath increasing the overall safety of the road for school pupils, pedestrians and cyclists.

The Toucan type crossing will make sure children attending Muirfield Primary School and Timmergreens Primary School can cross safely.

The existing School Crossing Patroller will help children crossing over the Westway after the school Easter break until the 30 April to ensure that those using the new facility are able to use it both correctly and safely.

The works have been carried out by Siemens Mobility working with Tayside Contracts.

• First phase sells out at Living by Robertson’s new Livingston development

The first phase of homes at Living by Robertson’s Cherry Tree Park in Livingston has now sold off-plan.

Demand for the properties has been significant, attracting more than 200 enquiries and all eight properties released in the first phase have sold out in less than seven days.

The 82 homes include modern 2-bedroom apartments and 2, 3 and 4-bedroom terraced, semi-detached and detached homes. Cherry Tree Park features the Scottish Housebuilder of the Year’s new International Range of housetypes, which has been developed following intensive market research, including focus groups.

• Emergency funds enable Portsoy Sail Loft to Adapt and Thrive

Portsoy Community Enterprise has secured £25,000 to repurpose The Sail Loft self-catering hostel to respond to changing holiday habits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sail Loft was closed at the height of the 2020 summer season after the country went into lockdown and when it was able to reopen, restrictions meant that the 25-bed facility was only able to operate at a fraction of its normal capacity.

Social distancing will continue to impact on its ability to function effectively as a hostel, but Adapt and Thrive emergency funding has provided a lifeline to overcome the longer-term effects of the pandemic.

The Banffshire seafront accommodation will be turned into three self-catering apartments, which will boost occupancy, enjoyment and safety for guests. The spend will include the installation of kitchen units, and the creation of a new en-suite shower rooms and finishing the apartments to a high standard.

This will help satisfy the growing demand for self-contained holiday accommodation, while retaining the flexibility of being able to cater for larger exclusive group bookings as the venue will continue to be able to take parties of up to 25 people.

A listed building, North East Scotland Preservation Trust acquired the property from Seafield Estate in 2006 and in partnership with Portsoy Community Enterprise, undertook the restoration of the buildings. The £2 million project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Coastal Communities Fund and Historic Environment Scotland (through the Portsoy CARS).

The Sail Loft opened in 2017, achieving four-star hostel status, with 25 individual beds, a modern communal kitchen, dining area and lounge, laundry and drying room among its facilities. Its prime seafront position, wood burning hot tub and attractive interior earned it glowing reviews, with guests coming to enjoy cycling, walking, nature spotting, in addition to proving popular with groups like youth organisations, wedding guests and motorcycle clubs.

The building will remain unaltered in appearance from the outside as all works are internal and will not involve structural changes. The funding comes from Adapt and Thrive, the Community and Third Sector Recovery Programme which is part of the Scottish Government’s £350m emergency response to coronavirus.

• Councillors agree roads maintenance programme for Lochaber

Members of the Highland Council’s Lochaber area committee have approved a prioritised roads maintenance programme for the area for this year 2021/22.

The capital budget allocation for Lochaber is £1,237,454, and the agreed priorities included in the approved road maintenance schedule are, for example: surface dressing works on the A884 and B8043; inlay works at East Bay Mallaig, Lundavra Road, Lanark Place and Henderson Row; overlay works at Morar village, Mingarry and Torlundy Road; patching on various routes including Burnside Road (Strontian), Fersit, Loch Arkaig, Albert Road, and Angus Crescent.

• Burns & McDonnell selected to join Scottish and Southern Energy Networks framework 

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has selected engineering-led construction firm Burns & McDonnell to be part of its new protection and control engineering framework.

The framework, which will last a minimum of three years, will support the adaption of SSEN’s distribution networks in Scotland and Central Southern England as it accommodates new connections and renewable energy sources. During this period, Burns & McDonnell will support SSEN as it transitions from RIIO-ED1 to RIIO-ED2.

Burns & McDonnell is one of three partners appointed to the framework, providing additional design and engineering support to the SSEN team. The framework will support a tranche of projects to upgrade substations across its networks over the next three years with an option to extend by an additional two years.

Protection and control systems are vital as utilities adapt their electrical infrastructure and move toward having more digital substations in support of the transition to net zero. Burns & McDonnell designed and built the first digital substation in the U.S. and is at the forefront of developing and constructing the technology internationally.   

This contract is the second Burns & McDonnell has taken on in Scotland, and it continues the firm’s rapid growth in the UK. Earlier this year the business won a separate major contract with National Grid to upgrade transmission assets. The firm, which has been operating in the U.S. for over 120 years, opened its first European office in Birmingham in 2017 and has more than tripled in size since then. It established a new business practice focusing on mission-critical projects in 2020 and will soon be opening an office in London to serve the European data centre market.