Plans build for innovation site

Scotland’s publicly-backed innovation centre for the construction sector is set to create a new facility in Lanarkshire in a bid to increase collaboration across the industry.

The Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC) said the site, at Hamilton International Technology Park, will deliver 30,000 square feet of workshop space housing state-of-the-art equipment, including a five-tonne overhead gantry crane. The equipment will allow construction businesses of all sizes to prototype and develop new products and processes, from early-stage ideas through to full commercialisation.

CSIC’S site will also include a “construction incubator” where start-ups and smallscale firms can collaborate with industry, academic and public sector partners.

Chief executive Stephen Good said: “Our delivery team are extremely busy getting everything ready to launch this resource to industry in the summer. It will provide a dynamic environment, away from the conventional building site, where the Scottish construction industry can innovate, take risks, explore and learn, safe in the knowledge that the activity here is protected from the perceived risks of innovating on live construction sites.”

Good said that, since CSIC launched in 2014, it has helped 42 projects get off the ground, “and we hope that having this new facility at their disposal will inspire even more people within the construction industry to get innovating”.

The refurbishment and fit-out of the site begins this month and is being carried out by East Kilbride-based principal contractor AKP Scotland. Completion is targeted for spring, with the facility set to formally open its doors to industry in the summer.