Building Briefs – October 29th

• West Dunbartonshire Council officially opens new offices in heart of town

The former Dumbarton Academy site has been transformed into a modern and efficient town centre base that features a retained William Leiper-designed, Grade A listed façade – the result of a conservation project supported by Historic Environment Scotland to ensure this important part of Dumbarton’s heritage was preserved.

Over 500 staff relocated to the state-of-the-art building at 16 Church Street in May improving access to services for residents and also bringing an economic benefit to businesses in the town.

Staff who helped deliver the project along with representatives from external contractors responsible for designing and building the new facility gathered along with community representatives in the building’s civic space as council leader Jonathan McColl and deputy leader Caroline McAllister unveiled a plaque to commemorate the opening.

The new building will bring savings in the region of £400,000 per year compared to maintaining the current office estate.

The council worked with hub West Scotland on the new office, with Lendlease as the main contractor. Keppie Design as architects; Rybka were the service engineers; Curtins were the civil and structural engineers and CDM Doig & Smith were the quantity surveyors. The project has also benefited from the input of the conservation architect Andrew Wright OBE.

• Partnership delivers new affordable housing for Carnoustie

Angus Housing Association and DJ Laing Homes marked the latest stage in their partnership building new homes for rent when they handed over the keys to a new 3 bedroom home in Carnoustie to a delighted new tenant.

The six new homes at Anderson Street, part of DJ Laing’s redevelopment of the old Carnoustie Maltings, is the fifth joint venture that the partners have built in the last ten years, in turn delivering around 70 new affordable rented homes.

Committee members of Angus Housing Association visited the new homes after the organisation’s recent AGM and the keys were handed over to Mrs Allison West by chairman Elizabeth Whitson and DJ Laing Homes managing director, Karen Nicoll.

• Angus Council welcomes continued development of Montrose

Angus Council leader Cllr David Fairweather has welcomed the wide range of strategic developments and investments that have been transforming Montrose.

The Montrose Road South scheme saw £3 million of council investment in infrastructure result in a return of £100m in private sector investment. The project involved the demolition of a number of properties, road realignments, new road construction, landscaping and the construction of a new feature wall around the port.

The aim of this innovative partnership was to improve the access to the area for large vehicles, remove large vehicles from residential areas, improve safety and improve the look of the area. The success of this scheme was recently recognised by winning a prestigious MJ Award for ‘Innovation in Property and Asset Management’.

The private sector has also flourished. This year a Scottish Enterprise grant of £4.9m was awarded to Baker Hughes GE to allow the oilfield services group to develop a £31m manufacturing campus which is expected to create 100 more jobs at the firm’s Montrose site.

In addition, this week GSK welcomed the First Minister to its state of the art site which has recently seen a further £54m investment in the plant that now employs 600 people from the area, following an earlier investment in 2016 of £25m.

A further £1.5m Scottish Government grant was added to a £5.9m investment by Montrose Port Authority to introduce a series of improvements which will allow larger cargo vessels to dock at the port. Over a five-year period, it is expected the move will deliver environmental benefits worth £5.2m through the removal of 1.26m tonnes of freight from the roads and 86,000 HGV lorry journeys in the process. Montrose Port also had its first cruise ship arrive on 17 August 2018.

• Aberdeen office market goes from strength to strength

Aberdeen office market has continued its strong performance in 2018 with a further 96,819 sq ft of office space transactions in the third quarter, an 8% increase on the second quarter. Property consultancy CBRE Scotland said this brings the total take-up for the first three quarters of the year to 275,369 sq ft.

There have been 23 office market deals transacted over the past three months, with demand particularly high from the energy sector. The largest letting of the quarter was Noble Drilling’s acquisition of 16,591sq ft in the Stratus Building at ABZ Business Park in Dyce.  Other notable deals from the energy sector include INEOS taking 9,702 sq ft on the second floor of Prime View, Prime Four Business Park and Sentinel Marine and Solstad Offshore UK Ltd taking 4,515 sq ft and 4,713 sq ft respectively within The Exchange on Market Street.

Significant transactions have also been completed within a range of other sectors, with NHS National Services Scotland taking almost 10,000 sq ft on the fourth floor of 1MSq at Marischal Square and training consultancy Millstream securing over 6,000 sq ft in AB1 on Huntly Street.

• £100,000 for Braemar Castle repairs

A Deeside castle has secured £100,000 of funding to help carry out major repair work.

Braemar Castle requires a £1.5 million revamp to help fix the roof and chimneys.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded the cash to the 17 th-Century castle with the potential of a further £480,000 in a future phase of funding.

• Council investigates flood risk in Fife

Fife Council is investigating the potential flood risk to the Eden and Lady Burn area of Cupar.

As part of the study the project team is holding a public exhibition at the County Buildings on Tuesday 6th November 2018, between 12pm and 7pm.

Officers in the team will explain the purpose of the study, provide a summary of the results and details of the options being considered to manage the risks in the short and long term.

Members of the local community are being urged to attend the exhibition.