Building Briefs – January 16th

Rangers Football Club plans to erect a memorial garden on a section of surplus car park outside Ibrox Stadium in honour of the club’s players and to remember victims of the Ibrox disaster.

The club has submitted plans to Glasgow City Council to build a memorial wall which would contain a section for the interment of the mortal ashes of Rangers FC supporters.

The club say that they want to turn an unused car park at Copland Road into a memorial garden which would have a wall, gates, fencing, public realm improvements and associated works.

The memorial garden would operate 8am to 8pm daily if the plans are given the go-ahead.

Designed by Memorial Walls, the seating plinths will incorporate concealed Bluetooth charging within a secure area demarked by decorative perimeter railings and gates.

New energy-efficient homes delivered for Ayrshire Housing

Yesterday’s Blue Monday proved to be far from depressing for Ayrshire Housing as local school children opened its latest development in the village of Dailly.

The project to transform the derelict pub site into much-needed homes for affordable rent has taken just nine months to complete.

The children were joined by South Ayrshire’s Provost Helen Moonie and Jeane Freeman, local MSP and Scotland’s minister for social security.

The project was made possible by generous funding from the Scottish Government and South Ayrshire Council. The energy-efficient houses were designed by Ayr-based architects ARPL and built by local contractor 3b Construction.

Travelodge submits plans for new Aberdeenshire hotel

Travelodge has submitted plans for a 61-bedroom hotel at a business park at Barmuckity on the outskirts of Elgin.

The hotel chain has estimated about 29,000 people would stay in the hotel every year, who would generate a total spend in the area of £580,000.

Diggers are currently carving out the roads that will form the Elgin Business Park estate on the eastern side of the town, next to the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road.

A report submitted by the hotel chain explains the “growth ambitions” for Elgin and the Barmuckity site made the development attractive.

Fife college campus in need of £5.2m of maintenance and upgrade

More than £5.2 million will have to be spent on an ageing Cupar college, prompting fresh calls for an entirely new building.

The future of Elmwood Campus has been uncertain since Fife Council announced it was moving off the site more than three years ago.

Sole occupant SRUC, Scotland’s Rural College, has said it intends to remain in the town but no decision has been made on the future of the existing building.

DM Hall promotes five new partners

Independent chartered surveyor DM Hall has appointed five new partners, with promotions across its residential, commercial and country departments.

They include Donald Yellowley, an expert in rural valuation work based in Bridge of Allan, and Ross Wilson, head of agency in the east of Scotland and a specialist in commercial property.

The other three - Richard Clowes in Galashiels, Graham Forbes in Inverness and Michael McDonald in Elgin - focus on the residential property market.

Russells helps to cement social housing plans in Scotland

A £12 million social housing project in Scotland has become the latest development to benefit from Russell Roof Tiles’ sustainable concrete roof tiles.

The 5.6-hectare scheme in Methil Brae, Fife is one of Fife Council’s largest social housing programmes, providing 101 high quality homes for rent. At a time when the Scottish Government has promised to deliver 50,000 affordable homes by 2021, the scheme has been instrumental in helping to meet these targets and the much-needed local housing requirements.

Comprising of a mixture of one to five-bedroom properties, including semi-detached units, bungalows and cottage flats, the scheme saw Fife Council work with Kingdom Housing Association and contractors Robertson Partnership Homes to deliver the ambitious scheme.

Robertson Partnership Homes specified Russell Roof Tiles, manufactured at its local Lockerbie factory, to deliver 100,000 of its Grampian concrete tiles in Anthracite and Terracotta.

Views sought over future design of Edinburgh’s George Street

Residents in Edinburgh are being invited to submit their views over how the design of George Street and the surrounding area should look in the future.

A series of public drop-in events are taking place this week to gather views from individuals, community groups and stakeholders over the proposals.

Design consultants WYG Environment Planning Transport, in collaboration with LDA Design, were appointed in October to draw-up a long term vision for the First New Town streets which encompass George Street, Castle Street, Frederick Street and Hanover Street.

The new preliminary design will take into account George Street’s interdependence with intersecting ‘First New Town’ streets Castle Street, Frederick Street and Hanover Street, as well as Charlotte and St Andrew Squares.

Participants to the drop-in events will build on stakeholder engagement and a set of design principles adopted by the local authority last year following a year-long trial to increase pedestrian and cyclist provision on George Street. The results of these events, against which future designs for the First New Town will be developed, will also feed into the City of Edinburgh Council’s wider context of the Central Edinburgh Transformation project.

A drop-in event is being held at The City Art Centre from 3pm – 6pm on Tuesday, 16 January.