We were proud to work with and support Heritage Vets, owned by Becky and Sara, who both left successful corporate careers as vets to set up their own veterinary hospital and practice in Midlothian, Edinburgh. Their goal is to offer cost-effective veterinary services and care to their local community. They wanted to hire a local building company and we were delighted to be hired by them. 

Becky and Sara’s first challenge was to find a suitable building. They found and settled on a beautiful but dilapidated steading building that required full refurbishment. Our job has been to transform the old steading building including two barns into a stage-of-the-art veterinary hospital. We are creating three self-contained consultation rooms, and a general procedure and dental theater. In addition to that, we will be building a sterile operating theatre offering the latest laparoscopic and open-wound surgery equipment required to treat a full range of animals. The barns will be converted into a wonderful and comfortable recovery area for the animals as well as removing the load bearing wall to join them to the main building. 

We have also coordinated and project-managed all the other contractors on this job including electrical engineers, structural engineers, HSE consultants, and specialist hospital equipment engineers required to consult on the project.

Smart access and monitoring systems will also be added to surgery to monitor the drug dispensaries along with staff RFID cards to allow controlled access to certain areas. We will also be installing a communication system in the operating and consultation rooms to allow for remote communications between the vets and other specialists in other locations. 

One of the challenges of running a veterinary surgery is the energy costs. Unfortunately, we have not yet had Council permission to fit solar panels to the Steading, we have instead requested permission to fit a small wind turbine which will be fitted with a battery backup system to the operating theatre to ensure that there is uninterrupted power. 

What has made this project such an interesting one is our work with Historic Scotland. The property is a state-of-the-art listed 21st-century building and we had to liaise with Historic Scotland to convert it without disturbing the historical heritage of the building. 

To find out more about Heritage Vets click here or follow them on Facebook.