Building Briefs – August 18th

Cairnhill strikes sponsorship deal with London Scottish

Cairnhill Structures, the Coatbridge based heavy engineering and steel fabrication specialists, have beefed up their marketing strategy with a new sponsorship deal with London Scottish, the English Championship rugby club.

The company will appear on the front collarbone of London Scottish’s brand new 2016/17 season playing kits, and will also become part of the match day experience at the Athletic Ground.

Cairnhill also have sponsorships deals with another rugby club, Glasgow side GHK who won promotion to the Scottish Second division this season, and with the Scottish Men’s U-18 Hockey team.

Cairnhill are specialist fabricators to the nuclear, rail, oil & gas, power generation, infrastructure and construction industries.

They produce a wide range of steel components, including massive girders and trusses for the Westfield Shopping Centre in London, some one third of the width of rugby pitch, and small steel plates used to repair cracked steelwork and re-open Scotland’s Forth Road Bridge after a three week closure last Christmas.

Aberdeen to bid for funding to repair Union Street buildings

Aberdeen City Council is to bid for £1.5 million of funding from Historic Environment Scotland to help repair and preserve key buildings on Union Street.

The money would go towards a Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS).

As well as approving the bid, councillors agreed in principal to release up to £1.5m of necessary match funding from the City Centre Masterplan budget – a potential investment of £3m if the bid is successful.

A CARS programme would make a significant contribution to delivering improvements in Union Street as part of the suite of initiatives identified in the City Centre Masterplan.

Funding would be used for the restoration of roofs and frontages as well as the reinstatement of architectural features and shopfronts. Conditions would be attached to the awarding of grants for individual buildings, including a commitment to future maintenance of the properties.

The programme of repairs would be carried out over five year period, with a project manager recruited to oversee the work.

It is expected that a decision will be made by Historic Environment Scotland towards the New Year.

Triple gold award for Ogilvie

Ogilvie Construction has achieved its third successive Gold Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) in this year’s Occupational Health & Safety Awards.

The RoSPA Awards is celebrating 60 years of presenting highly regarded and sought after accolades to businesses and organisations which have shown commitment to accident and ill-health prevention.

Through the scheme, which is open to businesses and organisations of all types and sizes from across the UK and overseas, judges consider entrants’ overarching occupational health and safety management systems, including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.

£150,000 transferred to Aberdeen’s Glover House for redevelopment

Aberdeen City Council has agreed to transfer £150,000 from the Bridge of Don Trust to Glover House, the former family home of Thomas Glover who was a major influence on the industrialisation of Japan.

The Bridge of Don Trust had accumulated surplus cash, and councillors agreed a recommendation that £150,000 of these trust funds be used for a grant towards the redevelopment of Thomas Glover House.

A feasibility study is being carried out for Glover House to identify a sustainable use for the property.

2020 high speed broadband roll-out target ‘on track but challenges remain’

The Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) are making good progress in widening access to high-speed broadband, but extending coverage to rural areas remains a challenge, Audit Scotland has found.

The Scottish Government has targeted everyone in Scotland to be able to access the internet at any time and on any device, by 2020. To help achieve this, BT was appointed to extend Scotland’s existing fibre broadband network in 2013 at a cost of £412 million.

Audit Scotland is monitoring the progress of both the roll-out and the Scottish Government’s digital infrastructure vision.

In an update report published today, the public spending watchdog says that 2.2 million out of 2.6 million premises across Scotland had access to fibre broadband (86 per cent) by March 2016 – 1 per cent more than the Scottish Government’s original target. More than 500,000 of these gained access through the contracts.

Assuming BT continues to meet its contractual targets, the Scottish Government can expect to meet its 95 per cent coverage target by December 2017. But work has so far focused on easier to reach areas, and the remainder of the roll-out will be more challenging, the report found.

While 26 of Scotland’s 32 council areas have met contractual targets for fibre broadband coverage, the areas that remain are rural or remote, and are likely to need more complicated and costly engineering solutions. Premises in rural areas also currently receive lower average speeds.

Audit Scotland said the Scottish Government has much to do if its ambition for world class digital infrastructure is still to be achieved by 2020. This includes defining clearly what world class means and setting out plans for how it will be achieved. The Scottish Government must also decide how it plans to spend a further £42m available for extending broadband coverage outside of the contracts.

New Aberdeen bypass diversion to open

It is expected that a section of the B977 (Scotstown Road) at Parkhill will temporarily close later this week for around 16 weeks to enable the road construction’s contractor to build a new bridge that will carry the new B977 (Scotstown Road) over the AWPR/B-T and undertake associated roadworks.

During this temporary closure, a short, signed diversion will be in place, which will involve road users using a new section of the C25C (Newmachar Church Road) which has been constructed as part of the AWPR/B-T project.

An AWPR/B-T spokesperson said: “This new bridge will carry traffic over the AWPR on the B977 which, along with associated works, will improve safety and improve journey time reliability in this area.

“The new temporary diversion is around 1300m long, adding 300m when compared to the existing B977, and is expected to add around 10 minutes to road users’ journeys during busy travelling periods.”

Refurb work begins at Banff swimming pool

Banff Swimming Pool in Aberdeenshire has been closed for major construction and refurbishment works to be carried out.

The facility is to be closed for a total of six weeks and will benefit from a new ‘changing village’, which includes changing cubicles and family changing areas, a steam room and sauna as well as a link through to the new Deveron Centre.

New windows and wall insulation will also be installed.

West Dunbartonshire Council takes on new construction apprentices

West Dunbartonshire Council has taken on a number of construction apprentices as part of its Modern Apprenticeship (MA) programme.

The new recruits are aged between 16 – 24 and will carry out a number of roles within the construction craft, which includes roofers, plasterers, joiners and painters. Elsewhere, other apprentices will take on administrative roles.

The MA programme aims to provide young people the opportunity to acquire a nationally recognised qualification as well as gaining work experience and skills.

East Dunbartonshire church transforms stalled development site into green space

Work to transform a stalled development site into a new green space in East Dunbartonshire has been completed.

The Bearsden Baptist Church has created a reflection and sensory garden at an underused site through the Stalled Spaces Scotland programme.

East Dunbartonshire Council was one of seven local authorities awarded funding to deliver the initiative, which is inspired by Stalled Spaces Glasgow and supported by Architect and Design Scotland (A&DS) and the Scottish Government.

It successfully bid for the area to be part of the programme - securing £15,000, which is being match-funded by the authority.

Small grants have been made available to encourage the temporary use of stalled development sites, under-used green spaces, and vacant and derelict land in East Dunbartonshire.