St Mary’s Guildhall has been crowned the overall winner of the RICS East Midlands Awards 2008.
The major restoration project, located in Boston, Lincolnshire, fought off stiff competition to take the ‘Project of the Year’ prize during a glittering ceremony, held at East Midlands Conference Centre, in Nottingham, last night (Friday 9 May).
St Mary’s Guildhall is Boston Borough Council’s oldest asset - the council has owned it since 1545 – and was in desperate need of repair and restoration prior to the project beginning.
Barrie Higham, cultural services manager at the council, who managed the project, said: “We are absolutely delighted to win. We thought we might have a chance of winning the Building Conservation category, as the guildhall is such an important building and all the work has been carried out with great care and to a very high standard, but we were overwhelmed to win ‘Project of the Year’. It has been a great privilege to work on the project and we are now very excited about going forward to compete in the next stage of the competition.”
Now in their 18th year, the RICS Awards celebrate and recognise exemplary projects across four award categories - building conservation (sponsored by Nottingham Trent University), regeneration (sponsored by East Midlands Development Agency), sustainability, and community benefit (sponsored by Electrical Contractors Association).
St Mary’s Guildhall, widely considered to be one of the finest medieval guildhalls in England, also won the Building Conservation Award. The Grade I listed 600-year-old building, has undergone a major programme of repair and refurbishment and is due to reopen this year as a visitor attraction.
In their assessment of the project, the judges described it as, “an excellent example of a refurbishment and conservation scheme” and praised the work which they said had, “been carried out to a particularly high standard”.
The evening’s other top award winners were:
• Madani High School, Leicestershire, winner of the RICS East Midlands Community Benefit Award 2008
• Westfield Shopping Centre, Derby, winner of the RICS East Midlands Regeneration Award 2008
• Heart of National Forest Youth Hostel, Derbyshire, winner of the RICS East Midlands Sustainability Award 2008.
David Potter, RICS East operations director, said: “Congratulations to all those who won an award or received a commendation. I wish them all the very best of luck in the international final later this year. I would also like to thank our sponsors and all of the other entrants for the huge amount of effort they put in, which ensured that this year’s competition was a big success.”
Edward Marshall, chair of RICS East Midlands board, said: “The standard of entry was exceptionally high and the judges felt this made it both challenging and difficult to make their selections. I congratulate the winners of each category who collected their awards at Friday’s ceremony and wish them every success at the grand final in the autumn.”
In addition to the category award winners several projects picked up commendations for excellence in their field. These were:
Building Conservation category
• Highly commended - River View Maltings in Grantham, Lincolnshire
• Commended – Royal and Derngate redevelopment, Northampton.
Community Benefit category
• Highly commended – Spout Yard Arts and Community Park Project, Lincolnshire
• Commended – New Mickleover Library, Derbyshire
Regeneration category
• Highly commended – Marshalls Yard, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire
• Commended – Old Market Square, Nottingham
• Commended – Redevelopment of the former Co-operative Department Store, Nottingham
Sustainability category
• Highly commended – Lawn View House, Nottinghamshire
Global Consultancy Turner and Townsend picked up two awards on the night in the sustainability category for The Heart of the National Forest Youth Hostel and Lawn View House.
Larry Greenwell, director of the Nottingham branch of Turner and Townsend, said: “We are delighted to have worked with The Heart of the National Forest and Nottinghamshire County Council on these two innovative and best practice examples of sustainability. Both clients paid exceptional attention to detail and to the issues surrounding sustainability, it is just a shame that only one could be the ultimate winner for the East Midlands.”
John Tiernan, project partner at Pick Everard, which was architects, consulting engineers, quantity surveyors and project managers on Madani High School, was very pleased to pick up the top community benefit accolade.
He said: “We have enjoyed working on the management design of this building, which has been designed to meet the very specialist cultural needs of the client. We are particularly pleased that the school is already proving to be remarkably successful in bringing community services to a disadvantaged area of the city.”
All of the winners of the RICS East of England Awards 2008 will go through to the RICS Awards international final in London later this year.
Last night’s regional dinner and awards ceremony was hosted by BBC presenter, Janine Machin, with special guest speaker, Ron Atkinson - one of football’s larger than life personalities. In addition to the individual category sponsors, Hays kindly provided sponsorship for the overall event.
