Building Briefs – February 16th

The £38.9 million Forfar Community Campus opened its doors for the first time today.

The state-of-the-art campus accommodates three elements of the community; the children and young people and staff from Forfar Academy, the communities team and the brand new sport and leisure facilities operated by ANGUSalive.

There will be a learning resource centre available to the public and enhanced community facilities including a performance space and accommodation for adult learning and youth activities. The campus is also equipped with Wi-Fi throughout to enable digital learning and public access to the internet.

The formal handover of the campus from hub East Central Scotland, and in partnership with Robertson Tayside, to Angus Council took place on February 6.

The sports centre at the brand new Forfar Community Campus opening to the public from February 20 comprises of a 25m-6 lane swimming pool with pool pod, studio pool with moveable depth floor, sauna & steam room, 8-court double main games hall, gymnasium, 50 station fitness suite, 2 studio rooms, squash court and crèche. The leisure provision includes a theatre, bookable meeting rooms and cafe. The outdoor facilities include a floodlit full-size synthetic grass pitch, and a floodlit MUGA (multi-use games area) pitch that includes 3 tennis courts, grass pitches will be ready in Autumn 2018.

The community campus incorporates the replacement for Forfar Academy, Lochside Leisure Centre and Forfar Swimming Pool.

The second phase of the project will see the demolition of old school buildings and the completion of the external works, including the sports fields.

£40m Parkhead health hub plans move forward

Plans for a £40 million health and social care centre in Parkhead have taken a step further towards completion.

Glasgow’s Integration Joint Board reviewed the plans for the state-of-the-art hub at a meeting this week.

They vowed to make the proposals a priority for investment and have agreed that consultation should take place between March and May 2017.

The venue will replace the current health centre which has been deemed unsuitable for modern medical and social care provision.

Along with two GPs, it is hoped the facility will be home to a variety of sexual and mental health services, a pharmacy, criminal justice facilities, dental services and other social service provision.

Wates agrees £6m PPE deal

Construction group Wates is set to spend £6m a year on personal protective equipment (PPE) after agreeing a three-year supply deal with Arco.

Wates has more than 4,000 employees and more than 10,000 supply chain operatives and partners. It will spend an estimated £2m a year with Arco to provide them with the necessary PPE.

Glasgow business goes underground for second time

Scotland’s oldest and largest ceramic, wall and floor covering specialist is celebrating a contract milestone with work on the Glasgow Subway, almost four decades on from the first tile it laid on the city’s underground.

Glasgow-based A De Cecco is currently working on Kelvinbridge for the second time, some 37 years on from when the business was first contracted to supply and fit wall and floor covering to the station in 1978.

The £107,000 project will see the A De Cecco team deliver new wall tiling to the escalators, main ticket concourse, re-tiling platform floors as well as tunnels and head walls as part of the station upgrade.

Working on the project is Skillbuild 2016 apprentice of the year, Gordon Cook, who beat UK-wide hopefuls to be named wall and flooring tile winner. At the age of 34, Gordon has excelled in his new career with A De Cecco, and, thanks to a string of major project experience, he is well on his way to becoming a master tile fixer.

Thurso school safety improvements approved

Plans have been approved to improve safety measures for school pupils in Thurso.

A total of £20,000 is to be spent on creating a footpath and installing a barrier with linings on the ground to make Miller Academy’s drop-off area safer for students.

The Scottish Government’s Cycling Walking and Safer Street Programme will provide funding for the scheme.

£2m North Lanarkshire school refurb to begin

Work is to begin on a £2 million school refurbishment project in North Lanarkshire.

The scheme will be carried out by North Lanarkshire Council at Cardinal Newman High in Bellshill.

Features include modernising the art department and building a new dance studio/fitness suite in the PE department.

In addition, a new £550,000 multi-use games area featuring an all-weather surface will be installed outside. Work is expected to take 16 weeks to complete.

Strong start for UK construction on the year as housebuilding flourishes

The UK construction industry has started 2017 strongly, with an increase in activity levels as the value of new building contracts awarded in January reached £6 billion, spearheaded by strong figures from the housebuilding sector.

According to the latest edition of the Economic & Construction Market Review from industry analysts Barbour ABI, housing figures increased sharply across January, with construction contract value reaching £2.7bn, a massive 83 per cent increase compared with January 2016.

Of all the type of projects across housebuilding, it was private housing that dominated in January, with 91 per cent of the total construction contract value in January, compared to just 66 per cent a year ago. Market conditions for private housing were also favourable for housebuilders in 2016, with Crest Nicholson recently reporting a 27 per cent increase in full year profits.

There are also currently £5.8 billion worth of housebuilding contracts that are nearing award status, suggesting this month’s growth is likely to continue over the next few months and beyond.

London unsurprisingly led all regions based on total construction contract value in January, accounting for 26 per cent. This was helped greatly by the £900 million One Nine Elms Twin Towers development, the largest project recorded on the month.

Letham Hotel redevelopment plans given the go ahead

Councillors have approved a major redevelopment of Letham Hotel.

Fife Council’s development standards committee approved the demolition of the function suite, internal alterations to the pub and an extension to the building to create two flats.

The proposal provides for the demolition of an area in the region of 240sqm which includes the function suite building, kitchen, pool room and storage areas.

The building would be divided vertically through the introduction of a new partition wall with the east portion of the building accommodating the public bar and hotel uses, and the proposed flats accommodated in the west portion of the building.

The application was approved subject to conditions including a detailed scheme for the sound insulation of the proposed flats.

Milestone reached as Scottish Water facilitates more renewable power than it consumes

Scottish Water is facilitating the generation of more renewable power than it consumes for the first time since it launched efforts to reduce its energy bill and increase renewable generation five years ago.

The utility company, which provides essential 24-7 services to customers across Scotland, is one of the biggest users of electricity in the country and requires about 445 Gigawatt hours (GWh) per year across 4500 sites such as water and waste water treatment works.

This is enough to power nearly 140,000 homes occupied by more than 300,000 people,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE971B2OFlk&feature=youtu.be

Through a combination of Scottish Water’s own investment in renewable energy and hosting private investment on its estate, new figures confirm that the company now generates and hosts more renewable power than it consumes annually and is on course to double this by 2018.

Scottish Water’s increase in renewable power generation, which supports the Scottish Government’s ambitious renewable heat and carbon reduction targets, has been achieved by improving energy efficiency, increasing self-generation and hosting private renewable investment on the company’s estate.

Central Scotland sees surge in out-of-town office demand

Office take-up in Glasgow and Edinburgh’s out-of-town markets were well above the five-year quarterly average in the final quarter of 2016 according to new figures.

The latest Big Nine report compiled by UK commercial real estate advisory GVA reveals that out-of-town take-up in Edinburgh was 76,755 sq ft, up 39% on the five-year quarterly average. The capital’s city centre take-up was 135,980 sq ft compared to a five-year quarterly average of 149,604 sq ft.

Key deals in Edinburgh in Q4 included 32,600 sq ft to EY at 144 Morrison Street and Bank of Montreal taking 13,000 sq ft at Quartermile 4. There were also two deals at 1 Tanfield: a new letting of 21,500 sq ft to STMicroelectonics and a sub-lease of 12,200 sq ft to Zonal Retail Data Systems.

It was a similar story with take-up levels in Glasgow for Q4, 2016: an out-of-town total of 111,854 sq ft was 31% higher than the five-year quarterly average whereas city centre take-up was down 32% on the five-year quarterly average at 101,194 sq ft.

During 2016, total take-up amounted to 1.9 million sq ft across the Edinburgh and Glasgow city centre and out of town markets. Glasgow performed slightly stronger over the year, with a total of just over 1 million sq ft against 786,000 sq ft for the capital. Other than Manchester, Glasgow was the best performing out-of-town market across the Big Nine cities and both Glasgow and Edinburgh performed well above average.

City centre-take up in Edinburgh ranked fourth amongst the Big Nine in Q4 behind Manchester, Bristol and Cardiff. Glasgow saw the sixth highest amount of activity, ahead of Newcastle, Birmingham and Liverpool. Headline rents in Edinburgh remained stable at £32 per sq ft in 2016, with Glasgow sitting at £30 per sq ft. During Q4, 2016 the largest out-of-town deal across the Big Nine cities completed in Glasgow, with Balfour Beatty occupying 43,560 sq ft at Maxim 7, Eurocentral.

Ireland sees near-record rise in construction employment

Figures for January show a near-record rise in employment in the Irish construction sector as companies responded to greater workloads.

Activity in the sector continued to rise sharply on the back of higher new orders.

The Ulster Bank Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – a seasonally adjusted index designed to track changes in total construction activity – posted 55.7 in January to signal a further marked monthly increase. The figure was down from 58.9 in the previous month, signalling a slower pace of expansion for the third month running. Figures above 50 signal growth.

The rate of job creation was the second-fastest in the survey’s history, just behind the record seen in November 2004. Approximately 27% of respondents signalled a rise in staffing levels during the month.

Construction firms remained strongly optimistic that activity would increase over the coming 12 months, with close to 60% of panellists forecasting an expansion. Positive sentiment was linked to confidence in the wider Irish economy and predictions of future new order growth.