On the 22nd of November, hub South West celebrated a year since its formation.   After surviving a very busy first year, we have decided to look back at the highlights and what has been achieved.

The early days
Immediately after formation, the hub team moved into its new offices at Perceton House in Irvine.  The first few weeks were a challenge with a multiplicity of skills being required from client management via cable management to furniture removals and a crash course in coffee making!  After getting the technical details sorted, we settled into our offices and started to focus on the early projects which needed to be delivered. 

Our first wave of projects
As with other hubs, our first challenge was the delivery of projects which had been partially developed by our clients, in this case NHS Lanarkshire.  The project (£41m capex) consists of 3 new build Health Centres in East Kilbride, Kilsyth and Wishaw.  Since engagement, the project team has developed this Design Build Finance Maintain (DBFM) project through the design stages, secured funding for the project and is due to become our first DBFM financial close this month.  To reach this milestone a year on from the formation of hub itself is a huge achievement and bears great testament to the dedication of the NHS Lanarkshire client team and the hub project team. 

The other early projects in which hub was engaged were:

-        Ardrossan Medical Centre (£2.4m, Client: Irvine Bay Developments, Contractor: Morrison Construction)

-        Dalbeattie Primary Care Centre (£1.7m, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, Ashleigh Construction)

-        Dunscore Primary Care Centre (£1.2m, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, Ashleigh Construction)

-        Montrose House Care Home, Brodick (£4.6m, North Ayrshire Council, Kier)

-        Irvine Annickbank Innovation Campus Phase 1a (£1.8m, Irvine Bay Developments, Morrison Construction)

These projects were all well-developed prior to hub’s engagement. The hub team was able to work with the Participants to procure a team, complete the design and competitively tender the packages. All 5 schemes reached Financial Close in late summer, another major achievement for the team.

Our supply chain stats so far…

hub South West has been created as an important catalyst for local economic development and local SMEs.   In delivering these initial projects, hub has engaged to a huge extent with its supply chain (which consists of 60% local companies). The hub South West supply chain now consists of over 500 local and national companies. Over 700 tendering opportunities have been provided to our supply chain partners already with 56% of these opportunities to local (i.e. within the hub South West Territory) organisations. To date five out of every six contract awards have been to local companies.

What’s happening next?

The hub South West team is now well developed and at full strength for the delivery of next year’s pipeline. Led by Michael McBrearty, hub’s General Manager, the team is co-located and looking forward to the next wave of projects.

The largest part of hub’s activity in 2014 will be the delivery of the Scotland’s Schools for the Future Programme with 5 of our local authority participants. In addition to this, several other projects are expected to reach Financial Close in 2014 and the hub team will continue to work with its clients to develop the pipeline further as best it can.