SCOTTISH property developers and private housebuilders are increasingly turning to the Scottish Greenbelt Company to solve the problem of maintaining the landscaped areas within their developments.
Formed in 1992 by Scottish Enterprise, Scottish National Heritage and Strathclyde Regional Council, in its first three years the company received #70,000 a year subsidy from the latter, but is now run along private lines, with no public sector subsidies.
Turnover this year is expected to reach #2m, an increase of #600,000 on last year.
The Scottish Greenbelt Company owns 203 sites throughout Scotland, from Inverness to Peebles.
Simon MacGillivray, the development director who on June 1 takes over as managing director, believes that the Glasgow-based company is poised for major expansion.
''I would hope that in the next financial year we would increase our turnover by another #600,000, and we are also forming a wholly- owned English subsidiary.''
This English-based company will be Greenbelt Company (UK), and negotiations are already being conducted with major developers which could result in one-off payments in excess of #2m to the subsidiary, as well as annual fees of #700,000.
''We have entered negotiations with three private developers in England as well as Leicester City Council,'' explains MacGillivray.
The Scottish company takes over and maintains residual land in housing developments and industrial estates, normally in return for a one-off payment. In some cases it receives an annual payment from homeowners on the estate.
''We take title of the land and are responsible for managing and maintaining it.
''Although the average size of our sites is only just over one acre, this year we will plant around 750,000 trees.''
Their largest landholding is at Eurocentral where they are responsible for 120 acres of landscape strips on the vast rail terminus area.
Scottish Greenbelt directly employs 18 people, and gives contracts to 25 contractors to carry out the planting and maintenance work. In addition to taking responsibility for landscaped areas, Scottish Greenbelt is also involved in land reclamation, with one of its largest operations being the site of the former Hallside steelworks near Cambuslang, near Glasgow.
Scottish Greenbelt has a 99-year lease on this 32-hectare site which it took over in 1995.
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