From the outset let me make one thing very clear: I love my job. I love watching our projects come to life and I take great pride in helping make a difference for our clients and the communities they serve. And I love seeing how my colleagues are prepared to go the extra mile to meet our clients expectations.
I felt very honoured and humbled to be recently appointed chief executive of hub North Scotland. Although I have been working for hub North since 2020, it was still an exciting opportunity to step up and take charge of an organisation that has worked on more than £1 billion of community infrastructure developments.
However, I am quietly confident that I can meet that challenge, thanks to the hub North experience I have already gained and the high quality of the team here. There can be no better time to begin with the business currently working on more than 50 commissions and taking a lead on crucial new policy areas such as place-making and net zero carbon.
It has been an incredibly busy start in my new role which saw the latest stage of the Aberdeen City Vision projects being approved. This is a bold masterplan refresh by Aberdeen City Council to regenerate the city centre and beachfront and transform Aberdeen into a world class destination. Hub North is providing the Project Management Office (PMO) function for the development and we are preparing to start works on the new city centre market and beachfront project.
The hub North territory covers 62% of the Scottish mainland and all but one of the inhabited islands. Our current work touches virtually every part of that area and includes everything from education and health and social care facilities to buildings for the blue light services.
Our team are also centrally involved along with colleagues from the Scottish Futures Trust, Scottish Government, clients, Built Environment Smarter Transformation (BE-ST) and Glasgow School of Art on our pathfinder Net Zero Collaboration Programme. 
This is hugely exciting, bringing all partners together for the first time to develop a co-ordinated regional carbon investment plan. I look forward to providing updates on this pioneering venture in the months ahead.
We are currently working on planning activities for a number of new schools across the territory and are awaiting the outcome of the Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Investment Programme Phase 3 (LEIP3) funding bids, and have mobilised rapidly to support clients as they respond to the circumstances around Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC). .
This period has also seen members of our team invited to join a series of working groups as the Construction Accord between the public sector and industry takes shape. We look forward to working with the chairs and representatives across the following critical subject matters: procurement, fair work, net zero, SMEs and skills
All of this presents major challenges for a public sector which is already trying to manage reduced budgets and increasing service demands. Hub North has worked steadily with our 16 public sector clients to find innovative and sustainable solutions to these challenges and will continue to do so.
As I finish these words I realise I still have one more challenge to complete: to go home and take my two young daughters to their football training, where I also help out as a coach. Trust me – being a chief executive is far easier!
Richard Park, Chief Executive