hub South West is celebrating a major company milestone as its first housing development welcomes its first residents.

Keys have been handed over to some tenants of the residential area in Saltcoats.

The former Canal Court complex site now contains 36 new homes built by Ashleigh (Scotland), comprising one- and two-bedroom flats with communal areas including a lounge, a dining room, a private courtyard and a social services hub.

The £6.4 million redevelopment was designed by North Ayrshire Council's in-house design team, specifically to meet the future needs of older residents.

Michael McBrearty, Chief Executive of hub South West, said: "Canal Court was a new challenge for us and the successful partnership with NAC and Ashleigh Building Ltd proves that our business model is transferrable between construction sectors.


"hub South West has achieved its current level of delivery through a focus on partnership working, stakeholder consultation and the sharing of design and build expertise. Crucially, the majority of our work packages have been awarded to companies in our territory."

Jim Montgomerie, Cabinet Member for Place at North Ayrshire Council, added: "This is an amazing facility which will allow our residents to live in high quality, sustainable and fully accessible homes.

"In the past few years we have refurbished or redeveloped a number of sheltered housing complexes across North Ayrshire and the results have been first class - the residents have given us hugely positive feedback on their new surroundings. 

"Our ambitious Council Housing programme has already delivered hundreds of modern, energy-efficient homes across North Ayrshire and we are well on track to build more than 1300 new Council homes by 2024."

Due to the success of Canal Court, hub South West will now spearhead a new housing development in Largs, which work will begin on this Spring.

(CM)