Building Briefs - November 1st

• Kintore station reopening gets a lift

The two ten-metre-tall, eight-ton structures were craned into position at the new station site this week.

Network Rail, and main contractor BAM Nuttall, are constructing the new £14.5 million facility to reconnect Kintore to the rail network for the first time in 56 years.

Funded by Transport Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council and Nestrans, the new station will have step-free access between platforms through the new footbridge and lifts.

Facilities at the station will also include a 168-space car park, including spaces for electric vehicles and disabled parking, bike storage facilities and connections into the local bus network.

Kintore is due to enter service in May 2020 and all Aberdeen-Inverness trains will call at the station.

• Councillors agree to demolish Glenwood Centre in Glenrothes

The first step towards the regeneration of West Glenrothes has been taken following agreement from councillors that the Glenwood Centre should be demolished.

Extensive consultation in local communities concluded the Glenwood Centre flats and retail units adversely affected the reputation of the whole area and the only way to revamp the area was to pull it down and start again. 

Fife Council’s assets, property and facilities committee decided to move towards a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) on all the privately-owned properties, so the centre can be demolished and the area improved. Through the project, all non-council owned homes and business properties will be bought by the council and then demolished and the site cleared.

• Housing association completes first exemplar estates initiative project in Lochgilphead

Argyll Community Housing Association (ACHA) has completed its first Exemplar Estates initiative.

The backcourt improvement programme in Lochgilphead is the first in a series of external environmental improvements across Argyll being taken forward by the Association.

The initiative comes out of feedback from ACHA’s annual tenants’ conferences which highlighted a wish to focus additional resources on areas of poor external environment.

As a result of this ACHA’s Board has approved a sum of £300,000 per year to be invested in such initiatives every year for the next five years.

Over 30 projects have been identified ranging from backcourt improvements to new landscaping.

The Exemplar Estates initiative is in addition to the £24.5 million ACHA invests each year in capital works, new build, reactive and cyclical maintenance.

• Hamilton’s Cadzow Street benefits from £130k investment

A £130,000 package of major road improvement works has been completed on one of Hamilton’s busiest streets.

Cadzow Street, which can see traffic flows of almost two million vehicles a year, has benefitted from more than 5,000 square metres of carriageway resurfacing, additional deep patching, complete relining and anti-skid surfacing from Leechlee Road to Muir Street.

The road, part of Hamilton conservation area 1, was closed entirely to allow roads teams to work ‘around the clock’ to ensure the work was finished during the recent October school holiday week.

South Lanarkshire Council committed to its multi-million-pound roads investment programme in 2008, and since then has boosted its roads budget by an additional £137m.

 

• Roadworks set for Millburn Road in Inverness

The Highland Council will be carrying out structural resurfacing remedial works to Millburn Road between Morrison’s Store and Millburn Roundabout, Inverness on Monday 4 November 2019.

The works are expected to last for seven days, weather permitting. Advanced notice signs are already in place advising of the works.

 

The works will be carried out under lane closures with short delays expected during the works.

 

In addition there will be some short periods of local access restrictions, in the vicinity of Victoria Drive and the access road to Chieftain Hotel, while works are progressing at the junction areas.

 

• Shepherd kicks surveying from sidelines into touch with rugby sponsorship

Shepherd Chartered Surveyors has kicked surveying from the sidelines firmly into touch by committing to sponsor Allan Glen’s RFC in support of two of its surveying staff who are members of the Bishopbriggs-based rugby union club.

Formerly connected with Allan Glen’s School, the rugby club continued after the school closed in 1989 and now runs a 1st and 2nd XV and various youth sides.

And last Saturday Shepherd managing partner Steve Barnett and head of hospitality Gary Louttit attended a sponsors day to watch two of their fellow surveyors (Alasdair McConnell, graduate surveyor in Glasgow commercial and Jack Heneghan, Hardies, Glasgow) play their part in Allan Glen’s 1^st XV win over local rivals Lenzie RFC 38 – 18.

After the game, the victorious Shepherd contingent was joined by Al Kellock. The legendary former Allan Glen’s, Scotland, Barbarians, Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors player expressed his delight to see Shepherd support ‘grassroots’ rugby in the local community of Bishopbriggs.