Building Briefs – September 13th

Commercial property developer Knight Property Group has diversified from its current industrial and office builds with their new speculative development at Kingshill Commercial Park.

In addition to Unit 6, the commercial park’s new style speculative industrial units, Knight Property Group have almost finished Unit 5 which has an open/ retail consent and consists of 2700 sq. ft. which is capable of sub-division to units of 900 sq. ft. and is due for completion in September 2018. It is constructed to shell specification and ready for incoming tenants fit out.

Kingshill Park and Prospect Park, both owned and developed by Knight Property Group are neighbouring developments to Kingshill Commercial Park. The three developments see a range of tenants from oil and gas specialists to home builders and serviced office provider BlueSky Business Space.

Green light for Cromarty cinema plan

A community group’s proposals to build a £250,000 cinema for Cromarty that will seat 35 people for showings of blockbusters and art-house movies have been approved by Highland councillors.

Its suggested location is next to a harbour and slipway, is about 25 miles from the nearest large cinema in Inverness.

Cromarty Estate and Cromarty and Resolis Film Society jointly sought planning permission for the project.

A meeting of Highland Council’s north planning applications committee approved the cinema plan.

Scaffolding work to begin at former Station Hotel

Contractors will begin to erect scaffolding around the former Station Hotel in Ayr from Saturday to put in place sufficient protective measures to address the public safety issues and reduce the extended exclusion zone.

South Ayrshire Council took action at the building adjacent to Ayr Station in line with its statutory obligations under the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 after public safety issues raised in a Dangerous Building Notice served in March 2018 were not sufficiently addressed.

The scaffolding will allow greater access for the safe passage of trains (including those with more than four coaches) and passengers, and the reinstatement of services to stations south of Ayr.

To ensure the works can be completed as quickly as possible, contractors will operate 24 hours a day. The works are expected to be completed by mid-October 2018 subject to progress, although this period may have to be extended.

The wider programme of public safety measures at the building adjacent to Ayr Station which includes the former Station Hotel, and the works to complete a structural survey, will continue beyond this time.

The council will continue to lead the process to address the public safety issues and remove the extended exclusion zone – as soon as it’s safe to do so – enabling rail services to be restored as soon as possible.

The task force will ensure the Scottish Government, ScotRail and Network Rail support us in delivering this urgent priority.

Further information about what’s happening can be found in our Q&A section.

Scottish housing prices to continue upwards trajectory, reports suggest

House prices in Scotland have continued to increase and may grow by almost 20% during the next four years, according to two separate reports.

The August 2018 Residential Market Survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) found that a net balance of 7% more chartered surveyors reported an increase in sales during August, while short-term sales expectations for Scotland also remain “positive”.

Turning to the lettings market, the latest numbers (which form a part of non-seasonally adjusted series) point to a further decline in fresh Scottish rental stock in August, a trend that has been emerging on the back of tax changes on buy-to-let properties, while tenant demand continues to rise firmly. Rents across the UK as a whole are therefore expected to rise at a faster rate than house prices in the medium term, with average rental growth projections standing at around 3% per annum over the next five years whilst prices are projected to rise by around 2% on the same basis.

A separate study by Savills found that Scottish house prices have risen for 27 consecutive months, forecasting a 17% increase by 2022. This compares with just 7.1% in London and 14.2% across the UK as a whole.

The report found that Edinburgh experienced higher prime value growth than any other UK city, even taking into account the disparity compared to other university cities. Meanwhile, there was an increase in both sales activity and prices at the top end of Glasgow’s housing market.

Scots urged to vote for Forth Replacement Crossing or Shieldhall Tunnel as world’s top engineering project

People in Scotland have the choice of two projects to win the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) People’s Choice Award, which celebrates civil engineering projects that have had a positive impact for their local communities.

The Forth Replacement Crossing with the iconic Queensferry Crossing as its centrepiece and the Shieldhall Tunnel sewer superstructure in Glasgow are competing against projects including Hong Kong harbour, Hyderabad Metro Rail project in India, and the rural access programme in Nepal. This year’s award includes international projects for the first time to mark the ICE’s bicentenary.

Voting at www.ice.org.uk/Peopleschoiceaward will close on September 28. The winning project will be revealed on November 6.

Scotland won the first ever ICE People’s Choice Award in 2016 with the Forth Road Bridge repair. The First Minister presented the Award to the winning team at ICE’s global HQ in Westminster in January 2017.