Building Briefs – November 2nd

City Legacy donates to ‘Brick By Brick Appeal’

City Legacy Homes, developers of The Athletes’ Village, has presented a cheque for £60,000 to the ‘Brick by Brick Appeal’, which is raising funds to build a new purpose built facility for Glasgow’s Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice.

Earlier this year, City Legacy pledged to donate £300 for each of the 300 homes sold at The Village, which will add up to a grand total of £90,000 when all sales are finalised.

With homes selling faster than expected, a cheque for the first £60,000 was presented by City Legacy’s equity partners to the Hospice’s chief executive, Rhona Baillie, and Carol Smillie, ambassador for the Hospice.

Roofing company eyes southern England expansion

Roofing company Weatherproofing Advisors, which has worked on major projects at Euston Station in London, Aberdeen International Airport and Glasgow Royal Infirmary, is planning further expansion across southern England with funding from Bank of Scotland.

The firm, which is based at Blantyre in Lanarkshire, highlighted its desire to capitalise on strong market conditions.

It has secured a £1.2 million invoice-discounting facility from Bank of Scotland. The bank said that this facility would enable the company to access up to 90 per cent of the value of issued invoices, usually within 24 hours of them being raised.

Weatherproofing Advisors was founded in 1987, and has 115 staff spread across sites in Blantyre, St Helens in north-west England, Newcastle and London.

The company has raised its annual turnover from £11m to £14m. And it is targeting annual turnover of £20m by 2020.

Premier Inn extension programme continues

Construction works have completed on the extension to the Premier Inn at Cambuslang, Glasgow.

The 14 bed extension is the second extension to the hotel and will take the total number of bedrooms to 76. The construction works were carried out by Marshall Construction.

Construction works have also begun on the extension to Aberdeen Westhill Premier Inn. The 21 bed extension will bring the total number of bedrooms to 102. The construction works are being carried out by Ogilvie Construction.

In addition construction works have begun on the extension to Glasgow Stepps Premier Inn. The 24 bed extension will bring the total number of bedrooms to 101. The construction works are being carried out by Marshall Construction.

These extensions are a number of projects in Scotland for Premier Inn, designed by lma | architects and planning consultants, currently on site or in the design stages.

SNIPEF annual awards 2015 shortlisted nominees announced

The Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) has announce that the nominees for two new plumbing and heating industry awards have been selected.

Short-listed for SNIPEF Business of the Year 2015/16 are:

CHC Ltd, Craigavon

LW Haddow Ltd, Perth

Sugplumb Ltd, Aboyne

The shortlist for the SNIPEF Merchant Customer Care Award 2015 includes:

Brian Duffy, Richmonds Ltd, Paisley

Michael Fraser, William Wilson Ltd, Inverness

Karen Millar, Graham, Bellshill

The ultimate winners of both awards along with others will be announced at a Gala Dinner and Awards event to be held at the Caledonian Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Edinburgh of 20 November.

Space Solutions to expand Glasgow base

Workplace design specialist Space Solutions is increasing the size of its Glasgow office by 50 per cent after winning new clients such as Abellio and Pure Gym.

Derek Binnie, director of central Scotland for the firm, said it plans to extend its workforce in the city from the existing 24 people.

Mr Binnie said part of that will come from providing new consultancy services.

Clyde Gateway’s first apprentices find long term employment success

Six men who were recruited to Clyde Gateway and City Building’s first ever adult apprenticeship programme are still enjoying stable employment there six years later.

In 2009, ten unemployed people and six school leavers living in the East End of Glasgow or Rutherglen were taken on as apprentice joiners in a unique programme that was joint-funded by urban regeneration company Clyde Gateway and Glasgow construction company City Building. Six of those apprentices, who are now fully qualified, remain City Building employees.

The highly-coveted adult apprenticeship programme, which recently took on 13 more recruits, has helped 42 jobseekers into work since 2009.

Clyde Gateway hopes that 2015 will see the creation of the 5,000th new job within its area - which includes Dalmarnock, Bridgeton, Rutherglen and Shawfield - and the 1,000th local person employed through its employability programme.

Stirling Council to publish draft budget report in wake of £25m shortfall

A draft report outlining proposed changes to the way Stirling Council delivers its services in the face of challenging financial circumstances is set to be published today.

The local authority is facing a budget shortfall of over £25 million over the next five years.

The report will be published on the council website from today and will form the basis for discussion between members of the public, council officers and elected members later this month.

A series of discussion events were held in September to gather views and ideas from members of the public that have helped inform the proposals now contained in the draft report.

A further round of Community Conversations open to all to discuss these more detailed proposals will now also be held.

Repair planned for historic Old Tweed Bridge

Plans have been drawn up to repair an historic bridge which links two Borders towns.

The Old Tweed Bridge was opened by Sir Walter Scott in 1832 and it was the main link between Selkirk and Galashiels for 140 years.

However it fell into a state of disrepair following the opening of the nearby A7 crossing of the river.

Transport Scotland has submitted plans to Scottish Borders Council to carry out extensive repairs to the bridge.

In its proposal to the local authority, the roads agency claimed the bridge, was “structurally unsound”.

It once carried the old A7 but now only pedestrians and cyclists can use the bridge.

Transport Scotland wants to remove the spandrel walls to build a new concrete saddle over the arches before rebuilding the structure.