Building Briefs – June 25th

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has allocated £1.5 million for Dean Castle in East Ayrshire to be restored.

The total project cost will be £5m with funding also secured from Historic Scotland (£500k) and the remainder from the East Ayrshire Council.

Development funding of £43,500 has also been awarded to help the council, supported by East Ayrshire Leisure, to progress their plans to apply for a full grant at a later date.

The project aims to carry out essential stonework restoration to the external fabric of the castle buildings, carry out new internal modernisation and redisplay of the world class collections and exhibition areas, and support a range of apprenticeship and learning programmes around the stonework restoration and collection conservation aspects of the project.

New £12m building unveiled at National Museums Collection Centre

A new state-of-the art collections research, access and storage facility was unveiled yesterday at the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh by Fiona Hyslop MSP, cabinet secretary for Europe, culture and external affairs.

The new building, which houses nearly ten million objects, will enable material from National Museums Scotland’s Scottish History, Archaeology and Natural Sciences collections to be preserved in optimal conditions which will both safeguard their long term future and allow a substantially greater level of access to the national collections, particularly for research purposes.

Nearly ten million objects been moved in total. They range in size from a beetle measuring less than a millimetre (the Nephanes Titan beetle), to the 5.2 metre-long skull of a sperm whale. The oldest object is a 4.5 billion year-old meteorite, the heaviest a Roman tombstone found at Carberry, East Lothian in the late 1990s which weighs over 360 kilograms.

The three storey building, funded by the Scottish Government, stands at nearly 15 metres in height (nearly 50 feet) and has a floor area of approximately 6,000 square metres.

Plans submitted to redevelop East Dunbartonshire Town Hall

A planning application to redevelop a town hall in East Dunbartonshire is to be submitted next week.

East Dunbartonshire Council will also be moving forward with its bid for support to rejuvenate Kirkintilloch Town Hall from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Work is currently due to take place on the exterior of the town hall to restore and replace stonework.

The plans include:

• Ground-floor event space

• Kitchen, store room, toilets and locker room

• New entrance, reception and vestibule

• First-floor heritage display, reflecting Kirkintilloch’s rich history (in association with East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust)

• New office and community space.

Moray Council to put most of £5m surplus towards capital projects

Moray Council made a working surplus of more than £5 million in the last financial year, figures presented to councillors have shown.

The unaudited accounts revealed that an extra £5m could be added to the council’s reserves, however, councillors agreed a one-off provision of £2.8m from reserves for special projects, including £2m towards the cost of the new Elgin High School.

New regulations insist that the council’s share of costs have to come from the revenue budget rather than the capital budget.

The £250,000 refurbishment of the ice rink at the Moray Leisure Centre is also coming from reserves.

Lincoln Avenue demolition enters final phase

Work two demolish twin multi-storey blocks of flats at Lincoln Avenue, Glasgow, is in its final stages with a 247-tonne Liebherr long-reach machine bringing down the second of the two 58m tall blocks.

Demolition contractor Technical Demolition Services is on-site clearing the way for construction of 50 new Glasgow Housing Association homes to replace lost accommodation, with site clearance expected to complete by late summer.

Both blocks were built in 1964 but have been hit increased vacancy rates and rising maintenance costs in recent years as their popularity waned.

Remaining high-rise properties on the estate have had new windows, roofs and insulation installed by Wates.

Work on the Hypostyle designed replacement housing is expected to get underway next year.

Moray village group gets council funding for hall upgrade

Moray councillors have voted in favour of awarding a village group a £150,000 grant towards the cost of upgrading their community hall.

Elected members gave unanimous support to the transfer of ownership of the Public Institute building to the Fochabers Village Association Ltd at no cost under community asset transfer arrangements.

However, the additional request for funding of £150,000 to carry out improvement works was approved only narrowly by 13 votes to 11.

Members opposed to the award of the grant feared it would set a precedent at a time of competing pressures on the council’s limited finances.

Work begins on Glasgow’s first Krispy Kreme store

The opening of Glasgow’s first Krispy Kreme store is one step closer after planning permission was granted for the doughnut firm to open up shop.

The American firm was granted planning permission subject to conditions by Renfrewshire Council to turn the former Clydebuilt Scottish Maritime Museum at Braehead into a giant doughnut restaurant.

Argyll and Bute Council reduces savings target

The amount of money that Argyll and Bute Council will need to save over the next few years is less than it had previously expected, the council has said.

The local authority’s savings targets have been reduced to between £21.7 million and £26m, following updated budget estimates. This means a savings target of around £9m in both 2016/17 and 2017/18.

The updated funding gap was noted at a special meeting of the council’s policy and resources (P&R) committee when it met this week.

Public event to be held for new Kelso school schemes

An event to update the public on the design and construction of Kelso High and Broomlands Primary school is being held today.

The event will take place from 10am to 7pm in the current High School’s assembly hall.

Staff from Scottish Borders Council and the local authority’s development partner hub South East Scotland will be attending the event.

A European ruling affecting investment projects – including Scottish Futures Trust’s Scotland’s Schools for the Future programme - had delayed the start of work on the new Kelso High. However, significant progress towards a resolution has been made, and it is hoped work on-site can commence this summer.