Building Briefs – April 26th

Work is now underway on the extensive £6 million road resurfacing programme for East Ayrshire.

East Ayrshire Council trebled the budget for road resurfacing back in February after winter damage led to road defects being recorded on an unprecedented scale throughout the area.

The Roads Maintenance Unit Section in the Ayrshire Roads Alliance has designed a road resurfacing programme which will ensure that resurfacing work focuses on the roads most affected by defects, potholes and surface fragmentation.

Teams will be resurfacing substantial stretches of road; moving away from temporary repairs on isolated patches and potholes.

Work started last week on the C10 at Grassyards Road with 3km of road now resurfaced.

This week the team has moved to the B778 at Stewarton. 1.6km of road will be resurfaced from Gainford Bridge to Over Lochridge Farm.

The resurfacing programme started on Monday 16 April on the C10 Grassyards Road. From now until the end of May, the team who are currently working on the B778 Stewarton will then move to the C20 Irvine Road, Kilmaurs; the C126 Mountgreenan; the B7037 Galston to Sorn Road and Woodroad Park, Cumnock.

Business case approved for replacement hospital and care home on Barra

The outline business case for the replacement of a care home and small hospital on the Isle of Barra has been given approval.

Plans by NHS Western Isles for St Brendan’s Hospital and Care Home were considered by the Scottish Government’s capital investment group on April 17.

Work will commence immediately to further develop the proposals, addressing key priority areas and tasks.

Student accommodation planned for Edinburgh supermarket site

Scotmid Co-operative is set to put forward plans to demolish its Gorgie Road shop in Edinburgh and construct a new supermarket along with student accommodation for around 150 people.

The new store would be environmentally friendly, with CO2 refrigeration cutting the supermarket’s impact on the environment.

If approved, the store and associated Post Office will be closed while the building is knocked down and rebuilt – all staff would be temporarily deployed to other stores.

A planning application notice is set to be discussed at next week’s development management sub-committee.

Full proposals will then be submitted in early summer with the student flats poised to open by July 2020.

Dundee site selected for new women’s custody facility

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has revealed the preferred location for a new women’s custody unit in Dundee.

The Our Lady’s Primary School in Hilltown site is proposed to be the home of a new community custody unit (CCU) which will house about 20 women.

It was initially believed that the offenders’ unit would be built on the site of the former Rosebank Primary just yards away.

The SPS plans to open the centre, and another similar facility in Glasgow, by the end of 2020, providing facilities for women either serving short sentences or coming to the end of a longer one.

In total, 33 sites were considered in the Tayside and Fife area, 23 of which were in Dundee.

A spokesman for the SPS said: “The SPS is able to confirm that we have identified our preferred site for the location of this unit.

“This will be on the site of the current Our Lady’s Roman Catholic Primary School which is scheduled for closure and relocation later this year.

“Community engagement is a key priority of this project and now that we have identified a preferred site it is our intention to hold information events in the coming weeks to allow the residents of the local communities the opportunity to see and hear for themselves how we envisage the CCU working.”