Building Briefs – March 19th

Emtec Building Services has commenced works at 122 Waterloo Street which will house the new headquarters for Morgan Stanley Financial Services in Glasgow’s city centre.

This prestigious fast track fit out project of 155,000sqft to be completed within a 16-week programme, forms nine floors of open plan Grade A office space, and also incorporates a gym, kitchen and restaurant providing a state of the art working environment for approximately 1200 staff.

With over one hundred operatives and staff onsite, Emtec said its proactive approach and “can do attitude” in support of client Sharkey allows for client critical changes to be incorporated into the project programme without impacting on the overall completion date.

Ground investigation works on A9/A96 Inshes to Smithton scheme

Ground investigation works are to start on Wednesday 21 March 2018 as part of the plans to build a single carriageway road connecting Inshes and Smithton in Inverness as part of the Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal.

The work is expected to last around seven weeks.

The vast majority of the work will take place off the line of any existing roads in the area, ensuring the need for traffic management is kept to a minimum.

Inverclyde Council agrees budget

Inverclyde Council has agreed its budget for the coming financial year as it aimed to plug a funding gap of just over £3 million.

Among the additional investments totalling £5.8m will be a £1.3m investment for facilities including Lady Octavia Sports Centre (£470,000) and Boglestone Community Centre (£830,000). The council also plans to invest an additional £150,000 in developing a new tennis facility in Inverclyde to bring the council contribution to the project to £500,000.

The budget also proposes a three-year capital programme covering the period 2018-2021 with investment of just over £68m, with £21m to be invested in the education estate.

Projects for this period include:

Savings proposals include a £159,000 reduction in economic and regeneration funding for urban regeneration company Riverside Inverclyde (ri).

Ground works set to start beside the Bonnie Banks

Ground investigations are to start on the 26th March as part of the work to upgrade the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan.

The work is expected to last around 18 weeks.

Some traffic management measures will be required when necessary to allow work to be carried out safely. The works will be halted over the Easter holiday weekend from Friday 30 March to Monday 2 April.

Construction of new Cordale Housing Association office underway in Renton

The transformation of Renton High Street formally began last week with a ceremonial sod cutting ceremony to mark the start of the construction of Cordale Housing Association’s new office.

The new office will transform the heart of Renton, replacing long-standing empty shops and revitalising an area that had been in environmental decline. Cordale was keen to ensure the start of the construction of this building involved the whole community with pupils from the local St Martin’s and Renton primary schools attending the gathering along with Cordale committee members, Cordale staff, Caledonia Housing Association staff, Grant Murray Architects and representatives from Clark Contracts.

The contract was awarded to Clark Contracts following a pre-qualification stage and competitive tender process. The two storey building will be constructed over a ten month period and is expected to be opened in early 2019.

Work begins on new Galashiels play park

Construction of a new Galashiels play park is now underway.

The £290,000 facility in the Public Park is expected to take 12 weeks to complete by contractors HAGS, with an opening event scheduled for late May.

The upgraded play park will include areas for children up to six years of age and for older children, including a number of new items of equipment not available elsewhere in Scotland, including a special play train.

The park, which will be on the site of the current Public Park play equipment and will be enclosed by fencing, will include wet pour rubber safety surfacing throughout and specific facilities for children with additional needs.

The project is jointly funded from Scottish Borders Council’s play parks budget, Galashiels Pay and Display car parking fund surpluses and a £10,000 grant from Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme.

Images of the new play park are available at SBC’s Flickr page.

Percentage of disposable income Scots spend on mortgage payments nearly halves in a decade

Homeowners in Scotland pay a fifth (20%) of their disposable income towards their mortgage each month, according to new Bank of Scotland research, almost half of the proportion paid out in 2007.

Disposable income spent on mortgage payments in Scotland is 9% less than the rest of the UK (29%) making it the second most affordable place after Northern Ireland (19%) in the UK. Mortgage affordability has only marginally deteriorated (19.7% in 2016 to 20.1% in 2017), despite the first interest rate in recent years and house prices in Scotland rising by 7% in the last 12 months.

Five out of the ten most affordable Local Authority Districts (LAD) in the UK are in Scotland. Inverclyde is now Scotland’s most affordable location and is the UK’s second most affordable after Copeland in North West England. Inverclyde made the jump from fifth most affordable at the end of 2016 to Scotland’s most affordable with mortgage payments taking up 15.7% of disposable income. North Ayrshire (15.9%), West Dunbartonshire (16.2%), Renfrewshire (16.4%), and East Ayrshire (16.6%) also feature in the UK’s ten most affordable locations.

Over the last 12 months there has been a 7% increase in house prices in Scotland which has led to a marginal decrease in mortgage affordability, the report added. Despite the recent increase in the Bank of England base rate at the end of last year there has been little impact on mortgage rates so far. However, if rates were to rise over the course of 2018, the report argues that this could impact the 46% of UK households who have a mortgage either on a standard variable rate or tracker rate with potentially higher payments.

Despite the very slight decrease (0.4%) in affordability, the percentage of disposable income typically spent on mortgage payments has nearly halved compared to a decade ago. At the end of 2007, mortgage payments typically cost Scots 38% of their disposable income and now they pay 20.1% with an average monthly mortgage payment of £442. This is £227 less than the UK average of £669.