Building Briefs – April 25th

• Angus home named building of the decade

The awards, held at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath, celebrate the very best of building, design, development and restoration in Angus over the past ten years. Their purpose is also to inspire and encourage exceptional design quality in future proposals.

Members of the public judged The Zinc House Monikie owned by Mr & Mrs Callison and designed by LJR+H Architects and University of Dundee, to be the winner, making their informed choice via an online vote hosted by The Courier. As overall winner, they received the Heinz Voigt Memorial Award. Sponsor and presenter of the award was David Laing of DJ Laing.

Heinz Voigt was a talented and respected designer who contributed significantly to the built heritage of Angus. He was proud to call Angus home and was an active and supportive member of our community.

Category winners were:

Best new individual house

Winner:  Humpty House

(Client and designers: Ben & Rosemary Scrimgeour / Building Workshop. Sponsor and presenter of award: Brian Binnie – Denfind Stone)

Best new development

Winner: Old Orchard Kirkton of Craig

(Client: Mr & Mrs Adam/Mr & Mrs Ross /Mr & Mrs Trail /Mr & Mrs Keillor; Designer: Garry Adam Architect. Sponsor and presenter of award – Mark Guild – Guild Homes)

Best restoration/ conversion

Winner:  Chapelpark Forfar

(Client: Angus Council Housing Service. Designer:  Angus Council Architects. Sponsor and presenter of award:  Brandon Bryant - Pert Bruce)

Best extension

Winner: Usan Coastguard Tower

(Client:  John Pullar. Designer:  Garry Adam Architect. Award presented by Margo Williamson (Chief Executive of Angus Council)

• Housebuilder revolutionises on-site safety

Construction workers in Scotland are among the first to benefit from the next generation of protective headwear, thanks to housebuilders Mactaggart & Mickel.

Mactaggart & Mickel’s site managers are equipped with the innovative ‘Ranger’ safety helmets, whose futuristic design wouldn’t look out of place in a science fiction film.

The unique ENHA Ranger headwear is an award-winning, double-walled safety helmet featuring the innovative Crashbox impact absorption system, which reduces the force of an impact to the wearer’s head, neck and shoulders.

The Crashbox was inspired by the crumple zone effect from the automotive industry and allows for multiple colour combinations, to reflect various job roles on a construction site or to match a corporate colour scheme. The helmets are also more environmentally friendly, with a protective layer that blocks UV rays; extending their lifespan by as much as 50%.

Mactaggart & Mickel is one of the first companies in the British Isles to embrace the new safety helmet range, designed to exacting standards by German manufacturers ENHA GmbH.

• Shepherd lures surveyor over Queensferry Crossing

The Dunfermline office of Shepherd Chartered Surveyors has lured a high-flying surveyor from its Edinburgh office over the Queensferry Crossing to join its ranks in its busy residential department.

Kirkcaldy-born Steven Mackie graduated from Aberdeen with an honours degree in music, before changing direction and returning to Kirkcaldy to work in a Fife-based estate agency, then joining Shepherd as a graduate surveyor five years ago.

Steven has since gained his Masters in Real Estate Investment and Management at Edinburgh Napier University and become a fully qualified chartered surveyor in 2016. He has now chosen to return to Fife to pursue the next stage of his surveying career in the Kingdom.

• RICS: office space and industrials still in demand across Scotland, as retail fails to pick up

Sector conditions in Scottish commercial property remain highly varied, with industrial property and office space seeing solid growth and retail continuing to show little sign of improvement according to the Q1 2019 RICS UK Commercial Property Market Survey. Alongside this, anecdotal evidence suggests a lack of movement on Brexit continues to deter investors and occupiers across the board.

Demand from occupiers in the Scottish commercial property market saw an overall decline over Q1 2019. However, decline stemmed from the retail sector, where 52% more respondents reported a fall rather than rise in demand. Occupier demand for office space was broadly positive, and the industrial sector (including warehouses), continued to see a steady rise in tenant demand.

As demand for industrial space rose, the number of vacant units continued to decrease as, in contrast, availability rose sharply in retail. The number of vacant retail units has been increasing over the past 18 months across Scotland as the sector continues to suffer. This has consequently seen incentive packages from retail landlords pick up, with 50% more respondents reporting a rise rather than fall in retail inducements.

Across the UK, contributors are still anticipating further growth in rents across prime and secondary industrial markets over the next twelve months. Meanwhile, for offices, there remains a clear split between prime and secondary, with the former expected to deliver steady rental growth whereas for secondary office space rental growth projections are marginally negative.

As the Brexit debate rumbles on, domestic investment enquiries for commercial property, at the all sector UK level, have declined for two successive quarters.  Retail was responsible for most of this decline, however, investment enquiries also fell modestly for offices. Meanwhile, buyers are still keen for industrial units and investment demand for this sector remained positive. Prime industrial assets are predicted to post the strongest capital value gains on a sectoral comparison over the coming year. 

Looking across the market, 52% of respondents nationally continue to sense conditions are consistent with the early to middle stages of a downturn, virtually unchanged from Q4.

In each quarter since the Brexit vote took place, survey participants have been asked if they have seen any evidence of firms looking to relocate at least some part of their business as a result. In each of the two previous quarters, the proportion reporting they had seen signs of this type of activity came in at around 24%. Interestingly, however, this picked up to 33% in the latest results. Going forward, a slim majority (53%) of respondents nationally do now expect relocations to occur. Of course, whether or not firms do decide to relocate will still depend on how the negotiations unfold from here on.

• Prominent Dundee building set for sale

A Dundee West End landmark that had fallen into disrepair is up for sale after a number of issues were resolved.

The building at 28 Rosenagle was a former guest house but for the best part of a decade was empty and deteriorated before it was compulsorily purchased by Dundee City Council last year.

Now after remedial works were carried out at the three-storey property, council chiefs have put it up for sale.

In 2015, when the building had been vacant for at least ten years, planning application and listed building consent were applied for to restore, extend and convert 28 Roseangle to a 21-bedroom hotel.

That permission was not granted and an appeal to the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA) of the Scottish Government was not upheld.

The following year the council put up fencing to secure the site and started the Compulsory Purchase process.

Listed as a two storey villa with basement and three bay windows, the property has a prominent front doorway reached by a small bridge. Down the years it has been altered in line with current architectural fashion, as in 1850 when one of the bay windows was changed and a two storey chimney was added in the late 19th century. It has cast-iron railings on the frontage to Roseangle and high garden walls to the rear which would originally have overlooked the Tay Estuary.