Building Briefs – June 12th

Barratt Homes North Scotland wins two NHBC commended health and safety awards

Barratt North Scotland celebrated this week after its efforts to make Barratt Homes’ developments in the region the safest they can be were recognised by the NHBC – the UK’s leading warranty and insurance provider for new homes.

Site managers Jeff Calder and Alan Barclay led a collective team of 120 to success after they underwent a trio of health and safety inspections over a four-month period, resulting in two NHBC Commended 2018 accolades – awards given to site managers who demonstrate the highest levels of health and safety in every aspect of their work on site.

David Palmer, Barratt North Scotland Managing Director, said: “We are incredibly proud of these achievements. Health and safety is our number one business priority and all the team work incredibly hard and we put a lot of time and effort into making our sites safe for our people and the wider public.

“Our site teams are well trained in health and safety standards, but these awards show just how much we go over and above the call of duty. Our added value is evident in the time we spend sharing our health and safety initiatives with the communities in which we operate. People like Jeff and Alan right across our business actively engage with local schools to teach children, in close proximity to our developments, about potential hazards on live construction sites.

“I am thrilled that our guys will be heading to Birmingham next month to represent our team at the NHBC Awards. On behalf of everyone here, I wish them the very best of luck in the finals.”

The NHBC Health and Safety Awards finals will be held at the ICC in Birmingham on 6 July. The event will see David and Colin compete for the Highly Commended Award and the overall National Award.

NHBC’s ten-year Buildmark warranty covers around 80 per cent of new homes built in the UK. All of the homes at Barratt Homes’ Ness Castle and Westburn Gardens are covered under this warranty.

£3m Broomhouse Community Hub given all clear

The Broomhouse Centre has committed to the development of a £3m community hub after agreeing terms with Graham Construction to deliver the single-storey centre.

Agreement follows close of a successful fundraising campaign for the new centre, which will have twice the capacity of the old centre as well as the flexibility to offer a wider range of activities – although a further £500k is still required to complete the garden and furnishings.

The purpose-built 735sq/m hub will include its own cinema and café, hair and beauty salon, shop, artist studio and enterprise desk area arranged around a main hall, with the single storey profile of the new roof rising only above the main hall in deference to neighbouring homes.

In their planning statement Norr wrote: “The café space is the hub of the building and provides a transparent connection between the south and west public gardens, and the north private garden through a series of glazed screens. The space is also top lit and connects all the public functions of the building.

“The external walls are clad in a textured red facing brick with some areas of light grey zinc and untreated sustainable hardwood cladding. The roof is standing seam mill finished aluminium, and thewindows are aluminium clad to match the cladding panels.”

The new hub should be operational within a year with the existing centre at St David’s Church remaining operational until that time.

Samsara hits the ground running for REHAU

The REHAU windows team has welcomed a new addition to its Commercial Sales force in Scotland.

Samsara McDonald joined the team earlier this year with a strong sales background and hit the ground running helping to launch the new REHAU Connect platform.

Working on the REHAU Connect app project has introduced Samsara to a variety of REHAU customers, whilst the platform – a new and easy digital way to order profiles – has been rolled out in Scotland on a trial basis.

She said: “It’s been a great introduction for me into REHAU working on the Connect platform, meeting all the customers and installers and understanding their businesses. We’re looking forward to continuing to role the programme out and offering this extra service to our customers”

The REHAU Connect platform is easy and intuitive to use and keeps everything an installer requires for an order in one place, from quotation to completion, and installers can use it to show customers all the options they have to best meet their needs.

Whilst concentrating on the REHAU Connect project has been a great spring board for Samsara into her role she is also looking forward to working on the commercial projects. In her day to day role Samsara will be involved from the start of a project liaising with architects and specifiers to provide technical and design advice.

“In my previous role I worked closely with architects and local planning authorities and so I’m really looking forward to liaising with those contacts once again,” added Samsara. “In my role as Commercial Sales Manager I will be working on projects from the beginning and I really enjoy seeing how our contribution both in support and product can help bring a project to fruition for our customers.”

Cruden Building lends support to bring classroom learning outdoors

Construction company Cruden Building has donated £1,250 to Ibrox Primary and Nursery School to create an outdoor learning space for the children and to improve their shared playground space.

The school is on the doorstep of 152 new affordable homes being built at Hinshelwood Drive in Ibrox by Cruden for Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), part of Wheatley Group.

The donation, which will allow the children to get closer to nature and enjoy the outdoors, comes as part of the Community Benefits clause that Wheatley asks of its contractors.

The clause ensures that developments have a positive impact in the local area by creating jobs and training opportunities and improving the lives of people in the area.

Ibrox Primary has no grass outside and only concrete for the children to play on.

Thanks to Cruden’s donation the playground will be transformed into an amazing learning space where pupils can learn outdoors and engage with nature.

Phase one of the project has already been completed, thanks to help from donations and school fundraising activities.

Together with the cheque presentation, Cruden Building will also supply spare building materials to further enhance the outdoor learning experience. The school and nursery also plans to use the donation to fund the building of a mud kitchen and install picnic benches and other seating for the children to use these for eating lunch outside in the good weather.

Wheatley Group’s Community Benefits clause has also created two new jobs and three new apprenticeship places on the Hinshelwood Drive site.

Gordon Lee, Director of Cruden Building said: “At Cruden Building, we are committed to supporting good causes in the local areas that we work in. We’re delighted to support this school project in partnership with the GHA and we hope the children have many years of fun and learning outdoors in this new play area.”