McGill’s residential development and home building arm has been given the go-ahead to convert a former government building in Dundee into apartments.
The firm has been granted full planning permission by Dundee City Council to redevelop the former Department for Work and Pensions Building on Gellatly Street into homes, and said it would help boost the city's waterfront district.
The Dundee-based company acquired the property at auction last May in partnership with Aberdeen-based Cater Homes.
It said the property will create "affordable housing in a prime location and provide much needed jobs in the Dundee area throughout the development".
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There will be a total of 38 flats under the plans.
Graeme Carling, chief executive of United Capital, the parent company of McGill, said: “After a 14-month process, we are delighted to finally receive full planning permission on our Gellatly Street development. This development will see new affordable housing built in the city centre and will create new, and much needed building jobs in Dundee.
“When we bought this building in May 2019, with our partners at Cater Homes, we were excited by the opportunity to breathe life back into this dis-used building. I am looking forward to seeing the work get started.”
McGill’s development partner Cater Homes, recently developed nineteen homes in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, and the Gellatly Street development would be its first in Dundee.
Steve Choi, director of Cater Homes, said: "Everyone at Cater Homes are excited to have received full planning permission. We are looking forward to working with McGill and playing our role in the continued development of Dundee’s waterfront.”
The 17,000 sq. ft. site sits on the corner of Gellatly Street and Dock Street in Dundee’s waterfront campus which is currently going through a £1billion redevelopment and includes the new V&A Dundee Museum.
TSB swung to a loss in the first six months of the financial year after taking a big hit from loans it expects to go bad, as coronavirus causes waves in the economy.
The bank said it had taken a £111 million impairment across the six months as the economic outlook weakened.
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It pushed TSB to a pre-tax loss of £65.5 million for the half, a year after making a £21.1 million profit.
Banks have in the last week been writing off billions of pounds of loans they suspect will turn bad, citing the economic conditions brought on by coronavirus.
TSB highlighted the slow housing market and rising unemployment as two major threats.
Lockdown has been bad in many ways for banks, but as people switched to doing things from home, they also helped accelerate TSB's online growth.
Nearly three times as many customers are signing up for its mobile bank app every day than before lockdown.
More than nine in 10 transactions were processed through digital or automated channels in June, while more than 70% of sales were online.
Around 3,500 TSB employees have been working from home during lockdown, and the company has filled 80 of its 100 new roles at the IT department in Edinburgh.
TSB has been pushing to improve its IT systems after a 2018 outage that locked two million people out of their accounts and damaged confidence in the lender.
Chief executive Debbie Crosbie said: "We had a strong start to the year, but the external environment changed significantly when Covid-19 struck.
"We've benefited hugely from the technology platform we now have in place at TSB, enabling us to accelerate our digital offer for customers when they needed us most.
"Despite the challenging context, our balance sheet and capital position remain strong, we have improved efficiency in our operations, and our purpose to help people increase their money confidence has never been more relevant.
"I'm particularly proud of how TSB colleagues have responded, learning new skills, taking on new responsibilities, demonstrating real resilience, and above all putting customers first - showing TSB at its best."
Challenger bank Monzo has warned of "uncertainties" around its ability to continue as a going concern after losses doubled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The bank said there is a risk it may not be able to execute its business plan, which could impact its ability to raise capital to stay within the rules on how much money the bank needs to have on hand.
Even before the pandemic hit Monzo was suffering, with its losses more than doubling to £114 million in the year to February 28.
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