As one of the five Scottish hub territories, hub South West brings a wide range of public sector bodies, including health boards, local authorities and blue light services, together with private sector development partners, to form a hubCo aimed at increasing joint working and delivering best value.

Operating in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway, hub South West’s annual report for the year to March 2020 discloses that £158m of projects were in construction, with £468m in development. In addition, 518 jobs have been created, 634 training opportunities made available on hub South West projects and 100 apprenticeships have been completed since inception.

Michael McBrearty, chief executive of hub South West, said: “Now in our eighth year of existence, up until March 2020, hub South West had successfully delivered £507m of infrastructural projects covering the education, health, leisure, housing, and residential care sectors.”

He added: “During the 2019/20 reporting period we have developed and encountered diversity, a host of new opportunities, challenges, and changes; I am delighted, however, that this has resulted in another year of great success for hub South West Scotland.

“A variety of exciting projects progressed to site, primarily across the ‘early years’ and ‘housing’ sectors. Highlights include the £35m East Whitlawburn renewal programme in South Lanarkshire and £24m of early years’ facilities currently being developed and delivered across our territory, a testament to the adaptability of the hub process.

“Our extensive and varied portfolio of projects, together with our outstanding project delivery record, supports our pipeline into 2020. Greater utilisation of strategic support services in the pre-planning process has enabled our Participants to retain more design control at the project inception phase, which, in turn, has resulted in the more effective development of on-site delivery on various community projects throughout the year.

“In addition, hub South West has reinforced its support and positively engaged with our local communities, supply chains and stakeholders.

“Through our hub bespoke business development and engagement programmes, sector specific ‘Meet the Buyer’ events and ‘Supplier Showcases’, we continue to maximise the contract opportunities for SMEs across the South West region.

“I am delighted also to report that the year delivered an 80 per cent increase in local companies gaining sub-contract awards for the first time with our Tier One contractors.

“As ever, we remain fully committed to upskilling, training, and facilitating employment opportunities for people across our territory.

“The full economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are still to make themselves known but we remain confident that the role of organisations such as hub South West can only grow and become yet more critical to the overall strength of our communities in the months and years to come.”