Planting roots, growing people and saving lives at River Garden Auchincruive

ISG’s commitment to maximise the social value and beneficial impact we bring to society has seen us supporting hundreds of incredible community-focused initiatives over the years.

Working in partnership with our client and supply chain teams - G1 Architects, Q9 Cladding Solutions, Yorkshire Building Services, RMD Contracts and HSS Hire - we recently started phase 1 of the renovation and capacity expansion works on community rehabilitation centre, River Garden Auchincruive.

River Garden is a calming space for residents to reflect, grow and flourish, with the means to do so through the communal support of their peers and their participation in on-site social enterprises. The River Garden programme sees residents committing three years to recovery, taking this opportunity to work through their addictions and develop their talents and skills in: growing garden produce, woodwork, cooking for and waiting on visitors of the centre’s ‘Bothy Café’, and hosting events.

The renewed centre seeks to become a more comfortable and nurturing location to aid recovery for the residents detoxing from drugs and alcohol.

Refurbishing and extending the residential accommodation and recreational rooms, the renovation works will include:

• Extension of the existing recreation and accommodation buildings to provide a suitable facility as the capacity increases
• Insulating and timber cladding the existing buildings with Thermo Pine, to seamlessly give a modern appearance to the existing buildings – to match the new extensions
• New residents bedroom extension unit and refurbishment of the existing bedroom unit
• New composite roofing to provide a modern, insulated building that matches the new extension units
• Fully stripped out and renewed mechanical and electrical services, with a mist fire suppression system in the accommodation units
• Construction of a new build training facility that will be used to teach the public and the residents all about nurturing and brining on plants and produce

Senior project manager at ISG, Stephen Maclaren, comments: “River Garden is not just a place for rehabilitation, it’s somewhere for people to transform and shape the rest of their lives. Over the next 18 months, we’re refreshing and reimagining the fabric of the space – but really it’s the residents and wider community it benefits that will continue to breathe new life into it.”

Roy Malcom, director at G1 Architects, concludes: “We have been working with ISG at River Garden for over a year now. Across all aspects of this delivery, the team have demonstrated a ‘can-do attitude’, which has seen them being extremely responsive, helpful, and professional. In what is also a very challenging commercial environment, ISG’s partnership approach has ensured that these projects are delivered – not only to a tight programme – but also to tight budgets.

And all of this has been delivered within a live environment, where residents are living and working on site and the public are visiting the River Garden cafe. It’s wonderful to see what can be achieved when everyone works collaboratively towards a common goal!”