Two of Derbyshire’s leading construction projects have scooped top accolades at the RICS East Midlands Awards 2008.
During a glittering ceremony this weekend, Westfield Shopping Centre in Derby won the RICS East Midlands Regeneration Award and Heart of National Forest Youth Hostel at Moira, in the National Forest, won the RICS East Midlands Sustainability Award.
Global consultancy Turner and Townsend not only picked up the Sustainability Award for the Heart of the National Forest Youth Hostel, but also scooped a highly commended award in the same category for 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 Morgan, executive design manager UK North, said: “Westfield is delighted to receive an award in the regeneration category. Westfield Derby is just one part of the regeneration of the city centre with the Riverlights development and the Quad opening later this year and this award recognises what is being achieved in Derby.”
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). This year’s annual dinner and awards ceremony was held at East Midlands Conference Centre, in Nottingham.
The evening’s other top award winners were:
• St Mary’s Guildhall, in Boston, Lincolnshire, winner of the RICS East Midlands ‘Project of the Year’ Award 2008 and the RICS East Midlands Building Conservation Award 2008
• Madani High School, Leicestershire, winner of the RICS East Midlands Community Benefit 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.”
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 Boston Borough council, who managed the St Mary’s Guildhall restoration project, which won ‘Project of the Year’, 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.”
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
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.
