Building Briefs – January 4th

A utility infrastructure and networks provider has secured its first premises in Scotland at a newly completed industrial development in Bellshill.

GTC, which has operated in Scotland for over 20 years as a licensed distribution company, has opened its Scotland branch in a brand new pre-let 10,000 sq. ft. office at Western Campus located within Strathclyde Business Park.

The property was funded by a public private partnership between North Lanarkshire Council’s arm’s length regeneration company Fusion Assets and Glasgow based construction firm CBC.

Western Campus is funded through SPRUCE (Scottish Partnership for Regeneration in Urban Centres) which was set up by the Scottish Government and European Investment Bank to promote commercial development and job development in the local region, and with Clairmont Plc also pre-letting 1,500 sq. ft. and Ainscough Industrial Services taking space it means over a third of the 43,500 sq. ft. development has already been occupied.

Former Barratt boss to chair Grainger

Former Barratt Developments chief executive Mark Clare is to be the next chairman of private rented housing developer Grainger.

Since retiring from Barratts in 2015, Mark Clare has been developing his non-executive portfolio. He is the senior independent director of both United Utilities and Ladbrokes Coral Group and is also a non-executive director of Premier Marinas Holdings.

Mark Clare, aged 59, will succeed Margaret Ford as non-executive chairman of Grainger’s board on 13th February 2017.

Also joining the board of Grainger as a non-executive director at the same time will be Justin Read, (55) who was finance director of Speedy Hire between 2008 and 2011 before joining Segro until last month. He was also recently appointed as a non-executive director of brick company Ibstock.

New Dundee waterfront hotel to start

A global hotel brand is coming to Dundee, delivering a major boost to the city’s regeneration efforts.

Work will start soon to refurbish the former Baxter Brothers Mills at East Port into a boutique Indigo hotel, with an anticipated opening date of March 2018.

Indigo is part of the InterContinental Hotel Group, whose other brands include Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza.

The arrival of the establishment will bring much-needed investment to the east end of the city centre where decline has left a legacy of closed businesses and decaying buildings. The deterioration was in sharp focus at Baxter Brothers’ Lower Dens Works, once one of Dundee’s finest Victorian structures but now a building on the “at risk” register.

Work on a 96-bedroom four-star Indigo boutique hotel at the site will commence in early 2017.

AWPR - Section of C89C Chapel of Stoneywood to Fairley Road to close next week

A section of the C89C Chapel of Stoneywood to Fairley Road, from north of the Kirkhill crossroads up to an area close to Craibstone Golf Course, will close permanently from next week (week commencing 9 January 2017) for the construction of the Aberdeen Bypass project.

The permanent closure of this 200m section will enable the AWPR to be constructed through the closed section of the C89C Chapel of Stoneywood to Fairley Road.

When complete, this new section of AWPR will link up with the new bridge spanning the A96 to the west of Craibstone Roundabout.

Scottish Cities Alliance celebrates £100m investment success

The Scottish Cities Alliance, the unique collaboration of Scotland’s seven cities and the Scottish Government working together to promote the country’s great economic potential, is celebrating another hugely successful year with more than £100 million invested into the seven cities through its exciting programme of work to date.

With a Pitch Book showcasing £7.5 billion of investment opportunities, the Alliance aims to help cities attract investment with innovative Smart Cities, low carbon and hydrogen workstreams. The Alliance is working collaboratively to promote a wide range of development opportunities around the world, such as Aberdeen’s £1bn capital programme, Dundee’s £1bn Waterfront project, Edinburgh’s BioQuarter, Glasgow’s Clyde Waterfront, Inverness Campus, Perth’s booming food and drink industry and Stirling’s rapidly emerging digital-tech sector.

Last year saw the first investment successes from the Alliance’s Pitch Book - the £30m Mill Quarter project in the centre of Perth - with further Dundee Waterfront investments taking this total to £80m, with several more in the pipeline.

Godfrey Syrett wins £1m worth of Scottish school projects

Godfrey Syrett has won a raft of new contracts to make and deliver specialist educational furniture to four schools in Scotland.

The furniture manufacturer, which has two sites and a head office in North East England, has a dedicated education division which has been supplying furniture to schools in the North East region for almost 25 years.

The new contract wins will see the firm working with Morrison Construction and Graham Construction to deliver furniture solutions to four new build schools; Tarbolton Primary School and Dailly Primary School in South Ayrshire and Duns Primary School and Kelso High School in the Scottish Borders. All four schools are being re-built through the Scottish Futures Trust.

The contracts, which amount to £1m, were awarded to Godfrey Syrett following a competitive tender process and represent the company’s first projects with schools in Scotland.

Godfrey Syrett also recently announced it has won a £1.46m contract for a major student accommodation scheme in Glasgow, Foundry Courtyard, working on behalf of Balfour Beatty.

Doosan Babcock to install fuel cell units for AECC

Doosan Babcock has been selected to deliver a major fuel cell installation at the £333 million Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC).

As the largest installation of its kind in the UK, the low emission fuel cells will form part of an on-site 1.4MW Energy Centre to provide power, heat, and cooling to the facility.

Working with lead project contractor FES and overall main contractor Robertson Group, Doosan Babcock will install three Doosan Purecell units to provide a source of low-emission heat and power for the 150-acre site.

Fuel cells transform chemical energy from fuel into final electrical and thermal energy through cogeneration. The fuel cell cogeneration process delivers heat and electricity output more efficiently than the separate production of electricity and heat.

Once completed in 2019, the AECC will be located beside Aberdeen International Airport and is expected to attract major artists and events to the city.

Scotland exceeds 2020 renewables milestone

Scotland has reached a major milestone on its renewable targets for 2020.

The country now has 595MW of community and locally-owned renewable capacity, exceeding its 500MW target for 2020.

According to a new report from the Energy Saving Trust, there has been a 17 per cent rise in community/locally-owned renewable generation since September 2015. Overall, the schemes are producing enough power for around 300,000 homes, with the two largest power sources continuing to be onshore wind (273MW) and biomass (162MW).

Out of 15,570 locally and community-owned renewables sites in Scotland, solar posted the largest increase in capacity, more than doubling due to councils and housing associations installing Solar PV cells in their buildings.

To view the report, visit here.

Next phase to begin on £5m Dundee water mains upgrade

Work is to begin on the next stage of a £5 million water mains upgrade scheme in Dundee.

Scottish Water will today recommence improvements in Strathmartine Road, Hilltown.

Work will also be carried out on Kinghorne Road, with a five – six week northbound closure on Strathmartine Road, between Strathmore Avenue and Hill Street, beginning from Monday, 09 January. Diversions will be in place.

Further work will be carried out on the following streets over a rolling programme; Lorimer Street, West Street, Milton Street, Paterson Street, Mortimer Street, Fraser Street, Burgess Street, Bruce Street, Reid Street, Derby Street, Law Road, Hill Street, Kinghorne Road, Wishart Street, Kinloch Terrace, Stirling Terrace, Macaulay Street, Carmichael Street, Carmichael Court, McKinnon Street, Somerville Place East, Stirling Street, Rose Lane, Don’s Road and Constitution Terrace.

Derelict Kirkcaldy building to become music venue

A new live music venue is being created in Fife with plans to restore a derelict 110-year-old theatre to its former glory.

The former Kings Theatre, in Kirkcaldy, closed in 2000 and has fallen into disrepair, with water damage, crumbling plasterwork, peeling paint and threadbare carpets.

The Kings Theatre opened in Kirkcaldy High Street in 1906 but it soon became a music hall and then a cinema in 1916, which it remained until it closed.

Partitions installed in 1977 to accommodate multiple screens have now been removed to create a 2,000 seater venue, with the aim of attracting touring bands to the town.

There are also plans for smaller spaces for events such as weddings, a 50-seat restaurant and bar.

The team hopes to have the restoration work completed in three years.

Clark doubles workshop facilities

Clark Contracts has invested £250,000 to develop new workshop facilities next to its head office in Paisley.

The new premises, which open this month, span 10,000sq ft and are effectively double the size of the firm’s existing facilities.

Up to 20 skilled setting and bench joiners will be based at the workshop, and will use the space to create bespoke reception desks, bars, office furniture, shopfronts, and wall and ceiling panels.

Work starts on new Marston’s restaurant in Kirkcaldy

The development of a new Marston’s family pub restaurant is now underway at Kirkcaldy’s John Smith Business Park.

The new 150 cover pub restaurant is due for completion and opening to the public in June 2017.

Independent and pub retailing business Marston’s Inns & Taverns (part of Marston’s PLC), which bought the 0.6 hectare site at John Smith Business Park in 2016, will bring key amenities to the business park.

The £2.7 million development that is set to benefit local residents, visitors and local business users will employ around 45 full time and part-time staff.

Planning consent has been granted for a 60 bed travel hotel on the adjacent site at the business park.

Majority of Scots back increase to home energy efficiency investment

Health, housing, anti-poverty and environmental organisations have called for more public money to be spent on making Scotland’s homes energy efficient after a new poll found there was overwhelming backing for more investment to tackle fuel poverty.

A survey commissioned by WWF Scotland revealed that 69 per cent of Scots support more public investment in energy efficiency and 87 per cent want to see an end to cold homes in Scotland within a decade.

The charity said the findings send a clear message to the Scottish Government that investment must be stepped up to ensure no-one is living in a cold, difficult to heat home.

The environmental group is calling for funding for energy efficiency to be increased to £190 million with a total of £4.5 billion of public funds being spent between now and 2025, through subsidised loans, grants for the fuel-poor and other schemes.

The Scottish Government’s draft budget, published earlier in December, proposed spending £114m on fuel poverty and home energy efficiency during the financial year 2017-18. While this figure is a small increase on the previous year, it is a cut in comparison to the £119m spent in 2015-16 and falls far short of what is necessary to begin the transition to a programme capable of eradicating fuel poverty in Scotland and meeting our climate change targets.

Budget increased to bring greater transparency to land reform

Overall funding for land reform will be increased by £3.4 million in 2017, with the existing Scottish Land Fund budget maintained at £10m, the Scottish Government has announced.

The Scottish Land Fund awarded money to 49 projects in this financial year, with a similar number currently in the pipeline, supporting communities to develop proposals for purchasing land.

The additional funding will support the introduction of new measures which offer greater transparency around land ownership in Scotland for communities, tenants and land owners.

It will also support plans introduced in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 Bill to allow the Scottish Government’s programme for land reform to be taken forward.

Clark Contracts builds donations for local foodbanks

Staff at construction, refurbishment and maintenance company, Clark Contracts have held their second annual foodbank collection for The Trussell Trust.

The two week drive saw collection points set up at the company’s offices in Paisley and Edinburgh and its 23 building sites in Scotland.

The firm’s first foodbank collection was held last year after being suggested by the company’s employee led Steering Group which supports local and national charities, and turned out to be a huge success.

The food collected at Clark Contracts’ head office in Paisley was delivered to Renfrewshire Foodbank’s warehouse in Renfrew whilst food collected in the company’s Edinburgh office and onsite will be delivered to local foodbanks.