September 6 2021

Work to replace a former Fife hospital with 29 homes is to restart under new owners following the acquisition by Eastacre Developments, the developer behind the Doolan prize-winning West Burn Lane in St Andrews.

Netherlea Hospital in Newport-on-Tay has already been cleared and levelled in anticipation of development but several changes are now proposed to keep a lid on costs.

Amendments to four apartment blocks will see the removal of roof terraces to enhance privacy and reduce complexity, with greater conformity of design across each block allowing for greater duplication. The overall height of buildings has also been lowered but will retain the same high-quality brickwork as originally envisaged.

In a statement, Sutherland Hussey Harris wrote: "All building layouts have been rationalised to simplify construction and reduce capital costs which have increased considerably due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes rearranging floor to ceiling heights to be 2400mm in every apartment.

"It is the aim of the developer that with these changes the proposals will be of higher quality, easier to construct, have more longevity, more appropriate heating systems to avoid long-term carbon usage and also reduce the impact to neighbours by reducing building size and visible car parking."

Netherlea Hospital closed its doors in 2011 having originally been built as a home for shipowner Andrew Leitch in 1893 to designs by local architect Thomas Martin Cappon.

4 Comments

#1 Posted by modernish on 7 Sep 2021 at 08:43 AM

It's really poor show when architects are forced to take the fall for cost issues; why not just be honest and say either materials have gone up so we need to reduce the costs or the developer wants to make a bit more margin.
The implication of the statement issued by the architects is that the previous scheme was of lower quality, difficult to construct, had a short life span, had an inappropriate heating system and was overly dominant. I'm pretty sure that's not how the initial proposals were described in the design statement!

#2 Posted by cannyman on 7 Sep 2021 at 13:44 PM

Seems a shame that the 100+ year old building had to be knocked down. With all due respect to the architects I am sure the red sandstone mansion would have been better than the four 'high quality brickwork' blocks.

#3 Posted by mick on 7 Sep 2021 at 15:27 PM

How terribly unexciting !
Do you mind if I yawn ?

#4 Posted by Mick on 8 Sep 2021 at 12:39 PM

Value Engineering. How my heart sank

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