Building Briefs – November 5th

Moving away from their traditional ‘home’ at Atholl Crescent in Edinburgh’s New Town, MLA have assisted the Scotch Whisky Association in their transition to a flexible, sustainable and collaborative way of working in their new HQ office at Quartermile 2 in Edinburgh.

MLA’s design comprises open plan office accommodation for approximately 40 staff with a variety of workplace and meeting / seminar settings to cater for the current and future needs of the Association and its members.

Fresh £10m to help home seekers get foot on property ladder

Funding for a Scottish Government scheme which helps people get on the housing ladder is being increased by £10 million, social justice secretary Alex Neil has confirmed.

Investment in the Open Market Shared Equity Scheme (OMSE), which helps eligible first-time buyers on low to moderate incomes buy a home on the open market, will top £80m in 2015/16.

Assistance is in the form of an interest-free loan with eligible buyers required to purchase between 60 and 90 per cent of the value of a home, for sale on the open market, within certain price thresholds.

In 2013 deputy first minister John Swinney announced £390m for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, £30m of which has been allocated to OMSE in 2015/16.

A further £40m was allocated as part of £125m of financial support announced in October 2014.

Digger maker JCB set to lay off 290 more workers

Almost 300 shop floor workers at JCB are set to lose their jobs.

The digger maker currently has eight factories in Staffordshire, one in Derbyshire and two in Wrexham.

The latest cuts follow an announcement in September that 400 jobs would have to go across the UK due to a “dramatic” slowdown in world markets.

Discussions have started with the GMB union over the proposed 290 redundancies and a 45-day consultation period has begun, the firm said.

Construction site safety continues to improve

The safety record of the construction industry has improved dramatically over the past year, new figures have revealed.

According to a recent report from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the number of fatalities in the building sector has fallen from 44 in 2013/14 to 35 between 2014 and 2015.

The latest figure is 20 per cent below the five-year average recorded since 2010 and a drop of more than half on the number seen 15 years ago.

There was a decrease in the amount of fatalities recorded over the last five years, with the report showing a fall of more than a quarter.

From 2010 to 2015, there were 217 fatalities on construction sites compared to 304 in the period between 2005 and 2010, representing a decrease of 28 per cent, the HSE’s annual Safety in Construction Report found.

Andy Murray wins approval to build house at his hotel

Tennis star Andy Murray has won a battle to have a house built in the grounds of his luxury Scottish hotel.

Bosses at Cromlix House have been given the green light to convert an old, abandoned gas house on the 34 acre estate into a three-bedroomed home.

The plans hit a snag earlier this year after wildlife campaigners called for a bat survey to be carried out at the property.

Campaigners win care home battle over demolition of Edinburgh bungalow

Community campaigners in Edinburgh have won a planning battle after city councillors rejected plans to raze a bungalow to make way for a care home and new houses.

The residents had objected to plans for a 44-bed care home and 14 townhouses on land between Meggetland and railway lines near Slateford station.

A key part of the planning application was the provision of an access road to the site.

Developer Allan Park Ltd sought permission to bulldoze number 25 Allan Park Crescent to create a road serving the care home and new homes, but on Wednesday the City of Edinburgh Council voted against the demolition.

The owners of the house in question were in the process of selling their property to the developers.

Council approves BOWL application

Permission has been granted to Beatice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL) to develop onshore transmission works for the project in Moray Firth.

A planning application was submitted to The Moray Council in April 2015 on behalf of the BOWL partnership.

Members of the council’s Planning and Regulatory Services Committee approved the application on Monday.

BOWL is a collaboration between SSE Renewables (50 per cent), Repsol Nuevas Energias UK (25 per cent) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (25 per cent).

An electricity substation will be built on a 13 hectare site at Blackhillock, near Keith, along with twin trenches carrying 200kV cables underground from Portgordon to Blackhillock.

Offshore cabling from the windfarm will come ashore to the west of Portgordon and surface on farmland 150m inland.

Onshore cabling to the substation will be buried underground at a depth of 1.5m to 2m.

Horizontal directional drilling will be used to tunnel under watercourses, roads, the Aberdeen-Inverness railway line and the Keith-Dufftown railway line.

The project is expected to generate up to 664MW of renewable electricity if built.

Construction is expected to begin in 2016 subject to a positive Final Investment Decision next year.