Building Briefs - February 2nd

• Drone footage reveals progress as new Madras College

Work on the new school, which started in July 2019, is part of the council’s £250 million Building Fife’s Future Programme. This programme has seen five secondary schools and two primary schools built in Fife over the last 10 years. Madras is the fifth secondary school.

Although work was temporarily stopped last March because of Covid-19, BAM resumed work on site in June last year.

• Dundee’s Lynch Centre set to become new home of Street Soccer Scotland

Street Soccer Scotland has secured the rights to transform the Lynch Centre in Dundee, with a focus on community and wellbeing at its heart.

The charity, which supports more than a thousand people across Scotland each year, plans to create a “change centre” at the South Road complex, offering local people use of the centre as well as opportunities for children and young people to use the facilities, in a bid to help those suffering from social disadvantage.

Street Soccer Scotland plans to invest £150,000 in renovations to the complex, with funding from the Scottish Government’s Social Innovation Partnership, The Hunter Foundation and The Northwood Charitable Trust.

Initial plans for the Lynch Centre, one of Dundee’s oldest sporting venues, show designs to renovate the existing building, which is in need of some updating, offering transformation of the existing office suite into an area where Street Soccer we can provide advice, support and education to their players. Over time there are also ambitious plans to transform the rest of the centre which currently offers two large sports halls, an internal gym, a viewing gallery and a number of changing facilities.

The charity, which will take over the premises in April, also plans to open the premises to partners working to support people facing disadvantage, including providing a base to expert advisors to support those struggling with money-issues, welfare or housing.

• Works to make safe damaged Inverness building continue

Following damage by a vehicle to a building on Pumpgate Street in the Merkinch area of Inverness, the site remains cordoned off and traffic management remains in place while work to make the building safe externally and internally continues.

The Highland Council is leading on works to make the structure of the building safe before handing it back to the building owners.

Last week the stage 2 works to provide additional external propping and structural scaffolding were completed. This has made the building safe enough for the stage 3 internal works to be carried out this week. The engineer and contractors are finalising the design of these works and work inside the building will start tomorrow. It is expected that the internal measures to make the building safe will be completed by the end of this week.

The current temporary diversionary route for all traffic will remain in place meantime. Next week once all stage 3 works are completed there will be an opportunity to reassess the traffic management arrangements, but external scaffolding will need to remain in place until the building owners complete all works.

• Resurfacing works to begin on A935 Brechin Garden Centre

Work to resurface the A935 roadway between the Brechin Business Park junction to a point 100 metres west of Brechin Garden Centre is set to start on Monday 8 February.

Subject to weather conditions, the roadworks will take approximately eight days to complete and the road will be closed during this time with diversions and local signage in place.

Access to the business park will be maintained wherever possible and pedestrian access will be available to all properties in the area. Domestic waste collections will continue as scheduled.