Housebuilding giant purchases 91 acres of land for new homes
Miller Homes said it has secured the purchase of land totalling 91 acres across the east of Scotland, to bring 676 'much-needed' new homes to popular towns and communities.
The homebuilder which, for over 90 years has helped build and shape communities across the UK, will now begin work on new developments at East Calder Oaks, East Calder, West Craigs Mews, Edinburgh, Miller Homes at Shawfair, Midlothian, and Avonside Wisp, Whitecross.
The developments follow the successful launch of Dalhousie Gate in Bonnyrigg, Midlothian last year, which marked the first in the series of strategic land acquisitions.
The four new developments will feature homes in a range of styles and sizes, meeting the needs of people moving to already vibrant communities or local people who are looking to either up or downsize.
The East Calder Oaks development will feature 67 four and five-bedroom detached properties, and 23 affordable homes. West Craigs Mews will comprise 92 homes, including two and three-bedroom terraced, three and four-bedroom townhouses, and four and five-bedroom detached homes, as well as 49 affordable homes.
Miller Homes at Shawfair will feature 176 two and three-bedroom terraced, semi-detached and detached properties and four and five-bedroom detached homes, plus 44 affordable options. Avonside Wisp in Whitecross, Falkirk will comprise 169 three, four and five-bedrooms styles, and 56 affordable homes.
The sites are near Edinburgh. (Image: Stewart Attwood) The award-winning homebuilder, which was founded and is headquartered in Edinburgh, will deliver energy efficient homes while working considerately with the natural environment and local communities. The four new developments are expected to support approximately 2,349 jobs, according to the Home Builders Federation*, demonstrating the wider economic benefits of Miller Homes' investment in the east of Scotland.
READ MORE:
Longstanding Scottish housebuilder purchases major English player
Each of the developments will feature homes from Miller Homes' latest portfolio, all of which are built in compliance with modern building regulations.
Gary Heaney, regional operations director at Miller Homes, said: 'The acquisition of these four sites marks a significant step in our long-term commitment to creating sustainable, thriving communities across the East of Scotland. By investing in areas where people genuinely want to live, we're striving to shape integrated neighbourhoods that our buyers will be proud to call home for generations to come.
'With continued strong demand for high-quality new homes in and around Edinburgh, we're looking forward to playing a part in the next chapter of these already thriving local communities.'
The first homes at Miller Homes at Shawfair will be ready by October 2025, followed by East Calder Oaks and West Craigs Mews in February 2026 and Avonside Wisp in March 2026.
Airline adds more flights between Edinburgh and Orlando
Passengers looking to go on the holiday of a lifetime will now have more options as more flights are added between Edinburgh and Orlando for 2026.
Virgin Atlantic will extend is current summer seasonal route next year by adding an additional twelve rotations – the equivalent of almost 5,000 seats.
It means next summer the service will operate from April to the end of October, with up to three flights per week, marking further growth for Virgin Atlantic at Edinburgh Airport, its home in Scotland.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said: 'We know Orlando is a bit of a bucket-list destination, so this is fantastic news for families in Scotland who have long wanted to experience everything Florida has to offer.
AROUND THE GREENS ⛳
The 'wealth' of Scottish links courses overlooked by golfers
This article appears as part of Kristy Dorsey's Around the Greens series
Owned and operated out of Dunfermline, Scotland Golf Tours was established in 1997 by managing director Ronnie Pook.
Its team of eight plan and execute trips for approximately 100 groups annually which vary in size from couples and groups of friends and family up to large associations of 32 people or more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
39 minutes ago
- The National
Scotland's budget is a disaster – but it's not just the UK's fault
There are many things wrong with the current devolution settlement, and Scotland will do immeasurably better as an independent Scotland, but the mantra that Westminster dictates Holyrood's Budget is not borne out by the legislation. For some reason, which I can only put down to a fear of taking responsibility for our economy, the Scottish Government and its Cosla colleagues spend inordinate time and effort and administrative costs carving out revenue-raising initiatives, the sum total of which may raise at best marginal amounts, via double Council Tax on second homes, licensing short-term tenancies, tourist taxes and now a cruise levy, while cavorting with the UK Government as the junior partner in twisted green (free) ports and levelling-up programmes. Apart from introducing Land and Buildings Transaction Tax as a tartan tribute act to Westminster's Stamp Duty Land Tax, the Scottish Government has singularly failed to use the powers of devolved taxes in the Scotland Act which even its own senior civil servants agree can be done. READ MORE: Why the UK media 180 on Gaza is too little, too late The powers relate to transactions on the acquisition of an interest in land, and as a result give the Scottish Government almost total control over the use of land as a source of public revenue. With the exception of our people, land is our most valuable and flexible resource which can be used to raise public funds to replace the block grant; to tax the pipes and cables of the energy companies; to lift everyone out of poverty; to transform land ownership both in rural and urban Scotland, and provide the surest of foundations to build our enterprising economy. Instead, we over-concentrate in inward investment which can depart somewhat more quickly than the painstaking efforts and subsidies used to bring it here in the first place. Inward investment extracts value from our economy for the benefit of the home states of the investors. Scots are a nation of Haves. Our income may buy less than before in comparison with other nations, but within the UK, we have the highest salaries outwith London and the south-east. The social contract between our government and our people provides many benefits and rights not enjoyed by the other three nations and our poverty levels are significantly less than theirs also. If we are to maintain the Scottish Government's propaganda that we are in some form of straitjacket then that's meat to those Unionists who proclaim that we are better off in the UK and are subsidised by it, precisely because independent analysis shows we are better off than most nations and regions in the UK. If we are really serious about independence, we must reject the block grant and raise and collect all public revenue in Scotland – then the subsidy claim is buried once and for all. The powers which we have under devolution can transform all lives and end poverty. Using them to put money in everyone's pocket will set us with self-confidence on the highway to independence as the potholes of Unionism descend into a vortex of despair. Graeme McCormick Arden MY wife and I will shortly make our 32nd visit to the Greek island of Rhodes. We love the Greek people and their determination to be free of the oppression by the Turks for more than 300 years. We were severely disappointed at the 2014 referendum 'No' vote and more so when we had the embarrassment of being offered the condolences of sympathetic Greek friends after that result. Every Sunday when we are in Rhodes, we witness a military parade to the national monument in which the Greek flag is lowered and their national anthem is sung by the crowd of local people and visitors. The Greeks revere their national flag whose nine stripes represent the nine syllables of their motto, in Greek 'Eleftheria i Thanatos', meaning 'Freedom or Death'! (Image: Danny Lawson) The Greeks actually FOUGHT for their independence, as did India, Ireland and almost all of the so-called 'British Empire'. Every time we witness that parade in Rhodes, we feel thoroughly ashamed of our compatriots who couldn't even find the courage to put an X on a ballot paper. Scotland the Brave? The Scottish people should get up off their knees and establish, not claim, their sovereign independence. It should be remembered that the so-called Union was enabled by a 'Parcel of Rogues', as Rabbie said! Jim McKenna East Kilbride WELL done to Kelly Given on her powerful assessment on the Gaza situation and the very belated criticism of Israel from the UK Government (Doing the right thing now does nothing for the dead, May 22). David Lammy described Israel's continued action as a new dark phase in the conflict. That was the case many months ago, but they said nothing except making weak statements about more aid needing to get in. Nothing about the wanton death and destruction which the UK is helping to facilitate. War crimes are war crimes whoever is responsible. I suspect UK Government ministers are now getting a bit nervous that they might be complicit if a war crimes trial ever comes to fruition. The UN investigations are ongoing, and even if there were a ceasefire tomorrow, these indictments don't go away. The Benjamin Netanyahu government has been testing how far it can go breaking international law for the past 18 months and has found it can get away with just about anything, shielded as it is by the US, which of course doesn't recognise the ICC. We're doing our bit out of Akrotiri, providing surveillance, as you highlighted in The National, as well as possibly helping the transport of weapons from the US to Israel. The UK Government said it's suspending trade talks with Israel. I didn't know there were any. Why would you want to trade with a regime guilty of war crimes? We stopped trading with Russia as soon as it invaded Ukraine. UK exports to Israel are around £3 billion and imports slightly less at £2.5bn, a relatively minor trading partner. While it's currently illegal for institutions to boycott Israeli goods, consumers are free to make their own decisions. Fruit and vegetables is one area to keep an eye on, as the origin is sometimes deliberately concealed. Another consumer area is moulded plastic, and there's quite a lot of plastic garden furniture and storage stocked by DIY stores and garden centres which are made in Israel, but you have to look very carefully to find the origin in the small print. When will justice be done? Hugh Walker Dunfermline MUCH is said, and rightly so, about large-scale electricity generators bespoiling the landscape. I feel that we would be better served by using marine generators to draw energy from tidal flow, particularly where narrows are formed such as at Corran and the nearby entrance to Loch Leven. One very good reason for using tidal generation is that the power will be produced for about 18 hours every day and not have downtime like wind generators. They can be small scale to power island or mainland rural communities which ideally will be locally publicly owned and operated, or large scale to feed a new Scotland grid. Another advantage is that high tides are at different times around Scotland's coast thereby giving a steady flow to the grid. As is the case of the marine generator at Strangford Lough in north-east Ireland, there is no impediment to shipping. We could also reset our thinking away from the mega size and think more about the micro scale. How many farms et cetera have a large burn flowing down, well capable of a decent output like the one which outlets into Loch Ard but can barely be seen? We could also make better use of our planning laws as I see new houses and buildings going up with perhaps as little as two or no solar panels PV. Or thermal. M Ross Aviemore LES Hunter (Letters, May 23) admirably articulates the Labour Theory of Property as expounded most notably by John Locke. Nobody can claim outright ownership of the gifts of nature (or God, if you will); only artefacts can rightly be deemed legitimate property. But then the socialist planner in Les takes over, demanding that the whole country be taken into public ownership when this is already the case (the only real landowner is the state, which claims eminent domain). And private hospitals, schools etc should certainly not be exempt from a land-use levy. We could rely on Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' to regulate land questions fairly, if only the state would create a level playing field, ending monopoly and speculation by fully recovering site values for revenue. George Morton Rosyth 'FIVE More Years' of John Swinney would be the death knell of the declining impetus in the independence campaign. The SNP Government should delete the N for National and insert D for Devolution, as they are like nodding dogs towards corrupt Westminster. We need a political body with the word 'independence' at the forefront of its targeted programme. It is years behind time that the current government will have to reform its attitude if it is to establish Scotland as a country and not a county, being pillaged of its assets by the despicable Unionist governments in England. Sandy Coghill Isle of Skye IT'S time to ditch Crown immunity. No-one is above the law, even government ministers. When will the British government stop its long history of aiding, abetting and committing genocidal clearance? The list is not exhaustive. Not unlike Gaza ... they spent the 1700s and 1800s either committing genocide or clearance against the Scots, let one million Irish starve in the 1840s by failing to assist them and exporting the little food they had to England (causing en masse emigration), backed the Nigerian government in the 1960s which led to mass starvation and genocide in Biafra. They pushed for less of a UN troop presence in Rwanda in the 1990s which led to genocide, bombed Iraq on false pretences killing half a million between 2003-2011 for access to oil wells and now Westminster is backing genocide in Palestine. A quarter of MPs have been financially backed by Israel, thus giving Israel massive influence over UK policy-making. Yet, none of this represents the vast majority of British voters. So, if our MPs are not representing us, who are they representing? If the Northern Irish, Welsh and Scots have any sense, they will make the three devolved governments come together and agree to hold a referendum on freedom on the same day for each nation. It's time to kick the British government out. R McCallum Dalry
Wales Online
2 hours ago
- Wales Online
Steven Gerrard's massive net worth, model wife and daughter's baby with jailed criminal's son
Steven Gerrard's massive net worth, model wife and daughter's baby with jailed criminal's son The Liverpool legend is on punditry duty for TNT Sports' coverage of the Champions League final Gerrard and his wife Alex Curran will celebrate 18 years of marriage next month (Image: Dave J Hogan/Dave) The biggest prize in European club football is up for grabs tonight as Paris Saint-Germain take on Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Munich. Inter are looking to seal their fourth Champions League title after overcoming Barcelona in a thrilling semi-final contest, while PSG are determined to finally get their hands on the trophy that has eluded them throughout their history and win it for the first time, having beaten a string of English sides - Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal - to make it to the final. Millions will tune in from around the world to watch the eagerly-anticipated clash, with TNT Sports broadcasting the game in the UK. The coverage will be fronted by Laura Woods, with a stacked punditry line-up featuring Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Karen Carney and Owen Hargreaves. Gerrard, of course, knows a thing about winning the Champions League, having lifted the trophy as captain of Liverpool after their remarkable comeback win against AC Milan in the 2005 final in Istanbul. An Anfield legend, the former midfielder hung up his boots in 2016 as he brought the curtain down on a career that also saw him win countless individual awards as well as two FA Cups, three League Cups, a UEFA Cup and a UEFA Super Cup. Since retiring from playing, Gerrard has moved into management, taking charge of Rangers, Aston Villa and Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq. However, he left the Saudi Pro League club in January. As he prepares to give his take on Saturday night's action, here's what you need to know about the Liverpool icon's life away from football. Huge net worth After a lucrative playing career, Gerrard has a huge estimated net worth of around £75 million, according to 888Sports. He is believed to have earned around £22.5 million over the course of his career which saw him spend 17 years at Liverpool before hanging up his boots at MLS side LA Galaxy. The 45-year-old has also earned a pretty penny in management, having been on a reported £15.2 million-a-year salary while manager of Al-Ettifaq. That figure made Gerrard the fourth-highest paid manager in the world at the time, with only Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone ahead of him. His huge net worth has also been boosted by several different sponsorship deals over the course of his career, having endorsed the brands including Adidas, Jaguar and Lucozade. Model wife Gerrard will celebrate 18 years of marriage with his wife Alex Curran next month, having tied the knot in a glamorous ceremony in Buckinghamshire in June 2007. Funnily enough, the couple - who first got together in 2002 - married on the same day as the weddings of his England team-mates Gary Neville and Michael Carrick. A former nail technician, Curran later moved into modelling and worked as a fashion columnist for the Daily Mirror and OK! Magazine. Together, the couple have four children together - Lilly-Ella, Lexie, Lourdes and Lio. During Gerrard's time at Al-Ettifaq, Curran and the children chose to live in Bahrain rather than Saudi Arabia and lived a glamorous lifestyle in a luxury villa. While he was manager at Rangers, the former Liverpool ace admitted his wife would see him quit football management "tomorrow" due to the pressure it puts on their family life. He told the High Performance Podcast: 'There are times when it dominates your life and you can't control that. That's what it is. 'But there will be a stage in my life where I have to give it up, for the sake of my family and for myself. To cut it, and live life with a bit of peace. There's got to be a stage of your life where you have calm and peace, but at the moment I don't feel ready for it. 'I do still feel full of energy. I do think I can help players. I do see opportunities to have more highs, and buzzes, and adrenaline rushes. 'For Alex and the kids, at some stage, I'm going to have to give me self to them, 100%. When that will be, who knows? Alex would take it tomorrow. She'd take it tomorrow.' He added: 'Alex is the one who brings me down, when I've come in, and think I'm fantastic. If I've scored a goal, or we've won a game, she pipes me down. 'And when you're on the floor, and you're staring at the wall, she's the one who helps pick you up." Daughter's baby with jailed criminal's son In January, Gerrard's eldest daughter Lilly-Ella revealed that she is expecting her first child with boyfriend Lee Byrne. The 20-year-old revealed the news on social media as she shared a photo of her positive pregnancy test and added the caption: "Our little secret. "The best news," she added. "Mini us is on the way." Her partner Lee is the son of notorious Dublin criminal Liam Byrne, who was sentenced to five years in prison for weapons charges in October 2024. Meanwhile, Lee's grandfather, James 'Jaws' Byrne, who died last year at the age of 77, was a career criminal. Article continues below However, LBC reports that Gerrard treats Lee "just as he would anyone else', while he was also thrilled to hear that he was becoming a grandfather at the age of 45. In response to Lilly-Ella's announcement, he wrote: 'We can't wait, great news and congratulations - we love you."
Edinburgh Live
3 hours ago
- Edinburgh Live
Hungry Edinburgh customers in huge queue as new burger joint opens in Southside
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Dozens of Edinburgh customers were spotted queuing down the street ahead of a new burger joint opening. Burger-Drop opened on South Clerk Street on Friday night and the chain was celebrating its first Scottish restaurant by giving out 50 free burgers to the first customers through the door from 6pm. For the rest of the evening orders were slashed to half price as a huge queue formed on the Southside street which was filmed by staff and uploaded to their Instagram story. The chain currently operates four stores - with two in Newcastle, one in Sunderland and one in Whitley Bay. Owners say there are 'more in the pipeline'. Posting on Instagram along with a short clip of the queue of customers the team said: "Is that the biggest opening Scotland has ever seen? Burger-Drop has officially landed in Edinburgh. "Thank you for all the love on such an epic launch night." The new restaurant sits at 74-78 South Clerk Street, having moved into the spacious unit previously operated by Black Rooster - a former peri peri chicken restaurant. Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages. Customers at Burger-Drop can choose from a selection of juicy burgers, chicken tenders and loaded fries as well as select bundles offering deals on a burger with fries and a drink. For more information and latest updates you can check out Burger-Drop on Instagram here.
