Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, has started work on First Glasgow’s £20 million new bus depot and headquarters at Gushetfaulds in the south side of Glasgow.
The new facility on a ten acre site on Cathcart Road will be the biggest bus depot in the UK with space for up to 450 buses and more than 1,200 employees.
The development will consist of three separate buildings. Balfour Beatty will be responsible for constructing a bus maintenance facility, a dedicated service tunnel, with a deep clean facility and a specialist long-term vehicle repair unit. The service tunnel will be fitted with an automated chassis clean unit, two high-specification automated vehicle washes, fuel installation and facilities for vehicle testing and body shop repairs.
The new buildings will incorporate some of the latest advances in design. Key features will include new vehicle lifts, 20 prefabricated, fully equipped pits, a new spray booth/oven for painting buses, new bus washes and refueling facilities, brand new training facilities and modern accommodation for drivers including lockers and canteen facilities.
Sustainability is a key feature of the project and the new facility will be one of the greenest bus depots in the UK. It will achieve this through the introduction of ‘photovoltaic solar cells’ on the roofs. These will be the latest and most effective type of solar paneling and will generate between 175,000 and 185,000 kilowatts per hour of electricity a year – enough to power around 40 houses per year.
In addition, rainwater harvesting will be introduced so that roof water can be used in the bus wash, saving a forecast 2.2million litres of water per year. Low energy intelligent lighting will save electricity by dimming when natural daylight is available, through the use of infrared detectors. A Building Management System will be incorporated that senses when a door is opened and automatically shuts down the heating within those areas to minimise heat loss.
New fuel tanks fitted with intelligent monitoring will allow instantaneous readings of all fluids and will automatically re-order supplies. The system orders automatically to avoid overfilling and reduce environmental risks and can also detect any water contamination.
Groundworks for the construction have already been completed by Raynesway, a Balfour Beatty company.
At a ceremony to officially unveil the site, local MSP Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, commented: “I'm delighted that First is investing significantly in a bespoke, state of the art, brand new bus depot and headquarters at Gushetfaulds. It is a real boost to the local economy and we're looking forward to welcoming First to its new home in 2014. It was a tremendous honour to be given the opportunity of putting the first spade in the ground.”
Fiona Kerr, Managing Director of First Glasgow, said: “It’s really exciting to think that this time next year we’ll be enjoying a state of the art facility specifically designed for operating and maintaining buses. We are pleased that Balfour Beatty, with its wide range of experience in delivering commercial projects across the world, will be helping us to deliver this project which will provide an improved working environment for our employees and help make our services even more attractive to our customers.”
Stephen Scott, Balfour Beatty Managing Director for the West of Scotland, said: “We are delighted that First Glasgow has awarded Balfour Beatty the contract to construct its ambitious, high-tech bus depot in the south side of Glasgow. We completed the infrastructure works for the depot and look forward to building on our strong relationship with the customer to deliver this project that will help revitalise an area which has lain derelict for many years."
Construction is due to be complete in October 2014 with the site fully operational in November 2014.
