Building Briefs – April 6th

• Tarmac supports NHS with national PPE donation campaign

Equipment including protective face masks, gloves and goggles are among the supplies being shared by local teams based at Tarmac’s network of sites across the UK from where the company manufactures essential materials for use in infrastructure delivery and maintenance for a wide range of projects.

Martin Riley, senior vice president, Tarmac, said: “We’re immensely proud of the work our teams up and down the country are doing to maintain critical national transport infrastructure.

“Their efforts are helping to keep the roads, highways and railways open so health and social care staff can get to work, emergency services can operate safely and key resources such as food and fuel can move around the country.

“Alongside this we know that many colleagues have close personal connections to the NHS and other care workers who are doing such a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances. After receiving requests to share our supplies from members of the team like Josh, we wanted to encourage the whole company to support local communities with any equipment that can be spared as we all pull together to take care of one another at this critical time.”

The campaign has quickly been embraced by employees across Tarmac who have already supplied PPE to hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes in counties including South Lanarkshire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Surrey.

• Scotland to debut world’s most powerful tidal turbine

Scotland is set to debut the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, capable of generating enough electricity for 3,400 homes.

The record-breaking turbine, the O2, will be part of Scotland’s first ever tidal energy farm, with the first of two turbines expected to be connected to the grid by the end of this year.

It is being built by Scots firm Orbital Marine Power, which broke world records for tidal power generation in 2019, with prototype machine SR2000.

It is hoped the O2 machine, part of the 4MW scheme, will be fully operational in Orkney by early 2021. The pioneering floating devices, developed by Scottish firm Orbital Marine Power, are predicted to generate enough electricity to power up to 3,400 homes, around a third of Orkney’s needs.

The turbines are being installed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, a world-leading test and research facility focusing on wave and tidal power development.

The scheme will be deployed at the Fall of Warness test site, off Orkney’s northern island of Eday.

The latest move comes following successful tests of the O2 prototype, which was able to produce record levels of tidal energy, more than 3GWH, in its first year of operation.

• SOS experts answer national emergency call to provide rapid response solutions to fight COVID-19

A specialist solutions company with a track record of coming to the rescue of major organisations at a time of crisis is at the forefront in the fight against COVID-19.

ECO, which already supplies one NHS trust, is answering the call to help any organisation in the health sector or any essential business combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The company with a reputation for ‘getting stuff done’, has set up a full COVID-19 rapid response solutions operation with a range of emergency buildings, beds, and sanitisation solutions.

It has already answered the call to help a factory, which has a government order for manufacturing vital material for visors for the NHS, to continue production 24/7 by supplying anti-virus sanitiser and an on-call emergency sanitising team. 

ECO’s experience and equipment means it can even set up field hospitals and other emergency structures with its rapid response building team, and has large volumes of medically-approved beds to help cater for an upsurge in patients.

Prefabricated buildings, inflatable buildings, shelters, can all be provided at pace and its additional rapid response interior solutions operation means those buildings can also be fitted out with a wide range of medically-approved beds and the most hygienic materials available. 

The company is also rolling out rapid response testing solutions which include rapidly deployable virus containment and testing pods, which manage the flow of testing for coronavirus at entrances to hospitals, surgeries and other essential buildings such as emergency services centres, factories, and those offices and outlets where essential workers are based.  

ECO is this week donating a consignment of visors and some of its secure supply of anti-virus hand-sanitiser to a care home which was struggling to source sanitiser for its residents and staff.

The alcohol free anti-virus hand and surface sanitiser is a complex polymeric biocide in an aqueous solution providing ongoing protection to treated hands and surfaces. 

The product is ready to use for disinfection and sanitisation of surfaces, providing up to 99.9% efficacy against pathogenic organisms.

• Plans lodged for Murthly poultry farm

A poultry giant has unveiled plans for a Perthshire farm which could house as many as 26,000 birds.

A letter was sent out to residents in Murthly, notifying them of Aviagen Ltd’s plans for a major farm development.

Aviagen, which began commercial life over half a century ago at a base near Ingliston in Midlothian, have put forward blueprints for a major chicken farm which Perth and Kinross Council’s planning department are to run the rule over.

• Family play centre plan for Laurieston printworks

A disused power station is set for a new lease of life under plans to repurpose the vast space as a family activity centre.

The former Glasgow Printing Works on Pollokshaws Road has been taken on by Spectrum Properties and Jewitt & Wilkie Architects to undertake a light-touch conversion that will preserve many irreplaceable features of the B-listed warehouse.