Building Briefs – February 25th

The Hillside to Batchart Road overbridge, located on the southern leg of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty (AWPR/B-T) project, will take another step forward next week when twelve 25m long beams will be delivered to site.

The beams will be delivered on special abnormal load trucks, which will carry one beam each, on Monday 29 February, Tuesday 1 March and Wednesday 2 March.

The trucks will travel north on the A90 to Marywell (Findon) Junction where it will turn left onto Cookston Road, then right onto Hillside to Batchart Road (C30K).

The deliveries will be transported during daylight for safety reasons, between 9.30am and 3.30pm each day.

Work underway on final Quartermile office development

Work has now begun on the 73,000 sq ft Quartermile 3 office development in Edinburgh.

The Grade A office scheme will be Quartermile Developments’ last office building at its Edinburgh city centre mixed-use scheme.

The £35 million development on the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary will comprise 72,991 sq ft of space over six floors.

The adjacent £50m Quartermile 4 office development is 100 per cent pre-let to global, fabless semiconductor company Cirrus Logic and sports entertainment company Fanduel who have taken 70,033 sq ft and 58,567 sq ft respectively.

Quartermile 3 is scheduled to be finished in the fourth quarter of 2017.

North Lanarkshire Council budget confirms major housing investment and removal of 287 posts

North Lanarkshire Council has decided to bring investment in the current housing stock to a quarter of a billion pounds over the next five years and expand its new-build housing programme.

Setting its general services and housing budgets for 2016/17 yesterday, the council said more than 26,000 homes will be improved as a result.

Overall, the council will implement £19.5 million of savings which will see the removal of 287 full-time equivalent posts. Within this there are 177 vacancies, with the remainder to be dealt with through redeployment, voluntary redundancy or early retirement.

£100,000 project to maintain historic Fife building

Work is underway to maintain a historic building in Fife.

Contractor Thomas Menzies began strengthening the retaining wall and installing safety barriers outside Abden House in Kinghorn on 20 February.

The £100,000 project involves strengthening five reinforced buttresses and two horizontal beams, with concrete buttresses faced with stone masonry.

Once completed, any impact on the safety barrier will transfer to the ground of the adjacent field, without affecting the retaining wall.

The scheme is estimated to be completed within five weeks.

Work underway to repair Dee Bridge

Work is underway to repair a road bridge in Aberdeenshire.

The Dee Bridge at Banchory was badly damaged by Storm Frank over the Christmas period.

Each of the three piers which support the four-span masonry and concrete arch suffered significant score damage adjacent to their foundations.

The project will fill the scour holes to safeguard the structure from further flooding events.

It is expected the works will take three to four weeks to complete, depending on weather conditions.

CMS celebrates tenth birthday with £1000 donation to Kirkcaldy social enterprise

CMS Window Systems has kicked off a year of supporting a wide range of charities with a £1000 donation to The Cottage Family Centre, which provides vital services to families in Fife.

The donation marks the start of CMS’s year of extensive charity support marking the business’s 10-year anniversary.

To celebrate this milestone, CMS has committed to supporting ten charities dedicated to improving the lives of people in ten communities in which the business operates. The firm will make ten donations of £1000 each to causes nominated by its most valued customers.

Kirkcaldy’s Cottage Family Centre is the first charity to benefit from a donation by CMS after being nominated by Fife Council.

Established in 1987, the Centre gives support to families with pre-school children who are vulnerable to factors such as poverty, unemployment and health issues.