Building Briefs – November 13

Green light for McNeill statue plan

Celtic have been given the go-ahead to erect a statue of their legendary Lisbon Lions’ captain Billy McNeill holding the European Cup aloft outside Parkhead.

Plans were submitted to Glasgow City Council for the tribute, which will mark the club’s greatest achievement.

Drawings submitted to the planning department show images of McNeill lifting the trophy above his head as Celtic became the first British club to win the competition, in the Portuguese capital in 1967.

Celtic announced plans for the bronze statue, which will be positioned on Celtic Way, outside the stadium, in April.

No objections to the planning application were received and it has now been approved by the council, allowing construction to begin.

Application lodged for Perthshire barite mine

A planning application to develop a world class barite resource at Duntanlich, north of Aberfeldy, has been lodged with Perth & Kinross Council today (13th November) by oilfield services company, M-I SWACO.

The proposed mine is a replacement for the company’s mine at Foss, which has operated since 1985.

The Duntanlich orebody is unique in the UK. It is the only known significant barite deposit that is economic to work and will enable the UK to become self-sufficient in a mineral vitally important to the North Sea oil and gas industry, ensuring security of supply.

The planning application follows extensive community consultation, with events held in Ballinluig, Pitlochry and Aberfeldy and meetings with key stakeholders, to inform the proposals.

Barite is largely used as a weighting agent for drilling fluids in oil and gas exploration and there is no substitute with all the essential properties of this mineral. It is also used as a value-added application in the automobile and medical industries.

The Foss barite deposit has a complex geological structure making it increasingly difficult to mine. In comparison, a mine at Duntanlich, boasting a resource in excess of 7.5 million tonnes of barite which has a simple geological structure, could supply the whole of the UK’s requirements for more than 50 years at planned production rates.

The Duntanlich development would provide skilled employment for around 30 people, drawn from the local area, where employment is largely reliant on tourism and forestry. There could also be indirect employment opportunities for local suppliers and contractors.

Pallet Truck Shop Urges Businesses to Consider Recycling Wooden Pallets

Pallet truck providers Pallet Truck Shop is urging more businesses to recycle their old and worn pallets, as recycling rates in the UK continue to stall.

WRAP estimates that around 600m tonnes of products and materials enter the UK economy each year, but just 115m tonnes are recycled – which means around 485m tonnes of new products each year are slowly filling up the UK. Now, Pallet Truck Shop is urging its customers to do their bit for the UK’s recycling statistics by recycling or reusing as many of their old, damaged pallets as possible.

Phil Chesworth, Managing Director of Pallet Truck Shop, says, “The government is taking lots of steps to try and boost our recycling rates – like the recent 5p plastic bag charge, for example. But businesses must play their part too. The vast majority of our customers buy pallet trucks and other lifting equipment to be used with wooden pallets – and we’d like to take this opportunity to encourage more of those businesses to think twice about what they’ll do with their pallets once they become unusable.”

He adds, “There are countless organisations out there that will buy up old pallets for recycling or reuse – or businesses could be inventive and come up with their own schemes for recycling the pallets, like selling them to local craftsmen or breaking them down and using the raw materials for other projects.”

www.pallettruckshop.co.uk

Technical comparison of the Lifetime Homes standard and new national accessible housing standards

Habinteg, the innovators behind the Lifetime Homes Standard and champions of accessible housing, have published a briefing to help with the transition to the new national housing standards.

Technical standards have been introduced in England from 1 October 2015.

This briefing, aimed at local authority planners, developers, architects and access professionals, compares the technical specification provided in the new 2015 Building Regulations M(4) Category 2, ‘accessible, adaptable dwellings’ with the 16 design criteria set out in its predecessor, the Lifetime Homes Standard.

The Lifetime Homes Standard was developed in the early 1990s by a group of housing experts, including Habinteg and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The standard set out 16 design criteria that could be universally applied to new homes at minimal cost and was developed to ensure that homes are inclusive, accessible, adaptable, sustainable and good value.

The legacy of the Lifetime Homes Standard will now be broadly taken forward through Building Regulations in the form of the M(4) Category 2 standard, as shown in this briefing.

Habinteg have also contributed their expertise to the transition of these optional access standards with a briefing - 7 points about the new Housing Standards 2015 - published as the standards came into force in October.