Building Briefs – February 28th

Hardies Property & Construction consultants has been successful on a £1 million term commission submission for Glasgow Kelvin College for the financial year 2017 to provide a range of multi-professional services for the College.

The commission will see Hardies provide services to deal with buildings requiring refurbishment to roofs, pathways, ramps and drainage problems as well as listed buildings works, including slating, stonework, leadwork, glazing/windows and timber preservation, including dry rot and timber decay.

Hardies is also investigating structural subsidence at Glasgow Kelvin College’s Easterhouse site, where it will engage with a multi-disciplined design team to act as lead consultant, Quantity Surveyors, CDM-Principal Designers, Project Management and Architectural services.

The term commission will also see Hardies engage with Glasgow Kelvin College Designers and co-ordinate the various providers, namely, Structural Engineers, Civil Engineers, specialist timber consultants, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers and Lighting Engineers.

The various projects are scheduled for completion in early 2017.

Work begins on Lochore Meadows visitor centre following £1.8m investment

Work has begun on the replacement of Lochore Meadow’s visitor centre in Fife along with a new golf and football pavilion for the Country Park.

The work is being carried out by local contractor Hatrick Bruce Limited from Milnathort.

The new visitor centre will consist of a café, two educational rooms with a retractable wall for flexible use, an outdoor decking area and public toilets with disabled access and baby changing facilities. There will also be an interpretation area that will display information about the history of the park and interactive displays to help people navigate around the park and get the most from their visit.

The pavilion, benefits from £83,000 of Active Places Legacy Funding from sportscotland alongside £15,000 investment from Lochore Meadows Golf Club and £25,000 from Fife Golf Trust. It will be home to two changing rooms, a golf starter facility, a sitting area and toilets with disabled access.

The pavilion should be completed this July and the visitor centre in October.

New link to be created between Inverness campus and retail park

Work is to be carried out to improve roads access to Inverness Campus – including starting a project to create a new link to the retail park.

Pat Munro Civil Engineering has been awarded a contract to extend the existing road in order to open up new parts of the Beechwood site for development.

It will also complete the approach to what will eventually be a new railway bridge into Inverness Shopping Park.

There is already a pedestrian and cycle link to the retail park – but the new road will open up a route for public transport.

It will also run next to the site recently earmarked for the city’s new £66 million prison.

A7 road improvements require short-term closures

Two sections of the A7 road will be closed for a total of five days to allow for improvement works to take place.

A three-day closure at Crookston will begin on March 20 until March 22, followed by a two-day closure at Falahill on March 23-24.

Both closures will run from 9am to 4pm, with no access through the works during this time for motorists.

There will be further improvements to the A7 at Torsonce, south of Stow, in early May.

Full steam ahead as demolition begins on Ayr’s riverside site

Plans to breathe new life in to Ayr’s historic town centre are now officially underway. Contractors have moved onto the site on the town’s High Street as they prepare a number of buildings for demolition, paving the way towards the construction of a new Riverside Block.

Since 2013 Ayr Renaissance has been acquiring the properties on the Riverside block - the area of vacant properties around the former Woolworths building. This process was completed in 2016 and a master plan for its redevelopment formed. This masterplan was approved by South Ayrshire Council last week giving the green-light for demolition to commence.

The masterplan sets a vision for a high quality mixed-use development including quality office accommodation as well as space for niche retail units, cafes, restaurants and public engagement. The plan sets out a commitment to top quality design sympathetic to existing historic buildings and the surrounding conservation area.

The demolition contract has been awarded, after an open tendering process, to George Beattie Ltd of Kilsyth. It is a 40 week contract and includes provision for archaeological investigations to be carried out by Rathmell Archaeology.

The demolition contract involves the removal of all internal fixtures and fittings, followed by the demolition of all structures with the removal of all debris off site. This will be carried out under the watchful eye of our archaeologists who will ensure anything of historical interest will be identified and recorded. Once the buildings are cleared a series of trenches will be dug across the site to allow further investigation, ensuring anything of archaeological interest is identified and recorded.

Replacement or refurb of Aberdeen playparks brought forward

A total of £826,000 is to be spent accelerating the upgrade of playparks throughout Aberdeen after the money was agreed at the city council’s budget meeting.

The sites of the playparks are yet to be decided but the money is in addition to the £590,000 agreed at last month’s communities, housing and infrastructure committee for the planned 2017/18 playpark upgrades.

There will be further announcements later in the year for which playparks will be upgraded with the £826,000 agreed at the budget meeting.