26 February 2021
Through the partnership, it is receiving an £85m grant to deliver 1,724 additional affordable housing starts by 31 March 2022.
Two years on, and Craig Luttman, Deputy Group Director of Development and Sales at L&Q reflects that “the partnership has made it possible for us to provide more affordable housing to a broader range of young families across the Midlands, south east England and in the north west with Trafford Housing Trust. The clarity and the certainty on the forward availability of the funding is a big part of this – it has enabled us to accelerate schemes that would otherwise have been difficult to deliver.”
14 January, 2021 SHARE Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC) has launched a new initiative to promote diversity and inclusion across the construction sector, with targeted support for the industry’s multitude of SMEs.
Through the DIveIN training and development programme, CSIC will give businesses the tools and skills they need – depending on what stage they are at – to establish or enhance their diversity and inclusion offering to staff.
The 12-month programme has been developed in partnership with Equate Scotland – who has previously worked with organisations such as Balfour Beattie, Morrison Construction, CALA Homes and Historic Environment Scotland.
With SMEs accounting for around 95% of Scotland’s construction industry, the programme has been specifically tailored to provide them with the advice and guidance to implement real change.
By Kristy Dorsey Kilmarnock’s Halo regeneration project is set to become home to the newest in the UK-wide network of Eagle Labs business incubators run by banking group Barclays. Scheduled to open in May within the Halo Enterprise and Innovation Centre (HEIC), which is currently under construction, it will be Scotland’s third Eagle Lab and the first to be located outside a major city. It will occupy 15,500sq ft of the 46,000sq ft HEIC, with 110 desks providing co-working space for start-up businesses. The three-year agreement marks another milestone in the £63 million Halo project, a plan hatched by local businesswoman Marie Macklin after Diageo announced in 2009 that it would close down its Johnnie Walker bottling plant in the Ayrshire town. That led to the loss of 700 jobs and left behind an abandoned 23-acre site where Halo is now in the midst of an extensive building programme.