[A]llerdale Borough Council’s new swimming pool and leisure centre in Workington has scooped a major building award.
The £11.5m centre, which opened in September 2016, topped the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Awards, North West in the Tourism and Leisure category beating three other nominations.
The award, which was presented at a ceremony in Liverpool on Friday 19 May 2017, honours projects that make an outstanding contribution to tourism and leisure facilities in the region or locality. The centre was praised by judges for meeting the Council’s aims of replacing the old sports centre at Moorclose with a new facility which will encourage more people to take up leisure activities and integrate with all sectors of the community. They also highlighted the fact that the quality new centre had opened to widespread praise and saw a “significant increase in users, particularly with the more disadvantaged groups within the local area.”
Chair of the judging panel for the RICS Awards, North West, Will Rees, Director at Rees Straw Chartered Surveyors, added: “This is an excellent modern leisure centre, which could act as a template for other towns.”
Ian Frost, Allerdale Borough Council’s Chief Executive, said: “We are all absolutely thrilled by this award. The new centre has been a major success since the day it opened and anyone visiting cannot but be impressed. It’s great to get the recognition from RICS for all the hard work by everyone involved.”
The surveyor on the building project was Pick Everard with GT Architects providing the designs. The building contractor was Robertson Group.
The new centre is owned by the Council but managed by GLL under the Better brand. It boasts state of the art facilities including an eight lane 25m swimming pool, a learner pool with moving floor, a 90-station gym with the latest equipment from TechnoGym, sports hall, squash courts, sauna and steam room as well as 3G sports pitches.
RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) is a global professional body. They promote and enforce the highest professional qualification and standards in the development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure.