Building Briefs – November 15th

• North East secondary schools reach construction competition final

The ‘Build Your Future’ challenge was launched by Grampian Construction Training (GCT) in August of this year and was designed to highlight the full range of exciting, inspiring and rewarding career choices within the construction industry to pupils, parents and teachers.

The event very quickly gathered widespread support from various groups, businesses and educational establishments including Halliday Fraser Munro, Stewart Milne Group, Glulam Solutions, K R Group, Robert Gordon University, North East of Scotland Colleges, Kirkwood Homes, and Developing the Young Workforce (DYW).

Collectively, supporting companies created a range of inspiring construction-based tasks including ‘Build a Sustainable City’, ‘Create a Lock Block Driveway’, ‘Plumbing Obstacle Course’, ‘Build a Structure Without Using Your Hands’, and ‘Build a Tower, on Time and Under Budget’. Each task is allocated a maximum of 30 minutes, and teams are marked on criteria such as how well they worked as a team, and their overall understanding of what was expected of them.

Secondary schools from Aberdeen City and Shire were invited to submit a team of ten S2 pupils to take part in a series of construction-based challenges, with one team from each heat going through to a final event that is taking place at Aberdeen Football Club on Thursday 30th January. The overall winner will be presented with their award by special guest Stewart Milne, who will have the chance to share his own career path with the pupils.

20 out of the 30 North East secondary schools signed up to take part in this first year, and teams of 10 from the following secondary schools are now going through to take part in the final challenge: Meldrum Academy, Lochside Academy, Harlaw Academy, Mintlaw Academy, Ellon Academy, Turriff Academy, Kemnay Academy and Westhill Academy.

• East Dunbartonshire consults on proposed Allander Leisure Centre redevelopment

East Dunbartonshire Council has announced a public consultation on the proposed redevelopment of the new Allander Leisure Centre in Bearsden.

The proposal aims to redevelop the site to form a state-of-the-art sports and leisure facility, with additional plans to incorporate services for adults with learning disabilities.

Members of the public are being invited to find out more about the project at drop-in exhibition events, being held within Allander Leisure Centre (Milngavie Road, Bearsden) on:

Tuesday 26 November 2019 - noon-7pm

Saturday 30 November - 11am-3pm

Thursday 5 December - noon-7pm.

The Allander project includes proposals for a larger swimming pool, games hall, gym, cafe and changing facilities; improved football and tennis facilities as well as services to support adults with a learning disability within the centre (re-provisioned from Kelvinbank Resource Centre).

Work has been carried out with partners including East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust and East Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP).