Building Briefs – January 28th

Clyde Gateway has completed work on the BDP designed One Rutherglen Links Office, delivering 33,500sq/ft of grade A office space within the Rutherglen Links business park.

The £5 million building has achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ accreditation and an ‘A’ EPC rating.

Wheatley Group raises £50m with record-low bond

Scotland’s biggest social housing landlord has raised a further £50 million to boost its house building activities at a record low borrowing cost.

Wheatley Group secured the money through a bond which, at the time of pricing, is the UK’s lowest all-in price for a housing association public bond.

The successful return to the bond market follows its £250m deal in November last year which was more than £125m over-subscribed.

The £50m bond, retained and priced last week, achieved an all-in cost of 3.542 per cent, with a spread over gilts of 1.4 per cent. Wheatley, the parent organisation of Scotland’s largest Registered Social Landlord, Glasgow Housing Association, was rated AA- by Standard and Poor’s in 2014.

Wheatley has also concluded separately a new £50m commercial finance arrangement with the Group’s existing funders to increase the supply of homes for private rent. This will enable its commercial subsidiary, Lowther Homes, to grow its current portfolio of almost 500 homes from Glasgow’s West End to Leith over the next four years.

£4m to transform empty properties into affordable homes

Empty shops and properties which are “blighting” Scotland’s town centres could be transformed into affordable housing thanks to a new £4 million fund.

The Town Centre Empty Homes Fund will provide grant and loan funding to help increase the supply of housing in Scotland’s urban and rural towns.

The Fund, which will open for bids shortly, will offer funding to regenerate both homes which have been lying empty for long periods of time, and to convert empty commercial spaces into residential accommodation. The properties will then be available for affordable rent or sale.

It comes on top of the work of the Shelter Scotland managed Empty Homes Partnership which recently had its funding doubled and received a three year extension, to help bring more private sector empty homes back into use.

Century-old hydro scheme powered up at Blair Castle

A 100-year-old hydro electric scheme has been recommissioned to power a castle in Highland Perthshire.

Blair Castle first had the hydro system installed in 1908, and it ran until the national grid was switched on in 1951.

After it was discovered that the original piping was still in good condition, work started to get the scheme up and running again.

The 13th century castle in Blair Atholl is now entirely energy self-sufficient.

Work got under way to re-build the hydro system last year, after it was discovered the original pipework was still working, and indeed had been continually in use since 1951 for the castle fire hydrant system.

A full consultancy team of hydro engineers, environmentalist and electrical specialists was brought on board to install a new intake and refurbish the powerhouse with a new turbine.

Work was also done by acoustic engineers to soundproof the old power house, as the turbine generates about 85 decibels of noise when running. At full flow, 331,200 litres of water pass through the turbine every hour.

A special viewing window has been built into the power house so visitors to the castle can see the system at work and learn about the history of the hydro scheme.

Dundee fire building still too dangerous for investigation

Investigation into a Christmas fire in Dundee city centre still cannot go ahead because the shell is too dangerous for firefighters.

More than a month after fire ripped through the temporary Xmas Shop building on the Murraygate, the investigation is still on hold.

Proposed North Ayrshire campus consultation nears conclusion

The final leg of the consultation process for the proposed new campus in Largs started this week.

The Consultation Report, which details the findings from the public consultation, will be published, for a period of three weeks. Included is Education Scotland’s assessment of the educational impact of the proposal.

The next stage is for North Ayrshire Council will make a decision on whether to go ahead with the proposal. If approved the Scottish Government have a further eight weeks to make a final decision.

The proposal is to create a new 2-18 years campus, situated on the Inverclyde Sports Centre site comprising of:

The proposal is for one campus building, housing separate establishments with certain shared facilities, led by their own Head Teacher and leadership teams.

Double quick time for Moray planning applications

Planning applications submitted to Moray Council are being determined more than twice as quickly as they were two years ago.

Performance statistics show that in 2012-13 the average time to process an application and issue a decision was 16.8 weeks.

The council’s planning and regulatory services committee was told yesterdaythat the average is currently down to just 7.3 weeks.

The council said the success is due to the efforts made by staff and local developers to engage early in the planning process which provides a better quality of planning application and helps to speed up the process.

Work begins to upgrade M90 at Friarton Bridge

Roadworks on the Friarton Bridge are being restricted to avoid peak periods to cut down on potential delays.

The bridge is used by 35,000 motorists a day and the three weeks of roadworks are part of ongoing maintenance on the M90.

The work on the bridge began on Sunday and will be carried out from 9.30am to 3.30pm, Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 4pm on Sundays.

It is part of approximately £650,000 worth of improvements and maintenance work being carried out on the M90 from Kinross up to the bridge.

Motorists using the route are being encouraged to check the Traffic Scotland website for up-to-date travel information and to allow extra time for their journeys.

To enable the work to take place safely and for the protection of road workers, single-lane closures will be in effect during the construction period.