Civic building award for Focus Consultants project

Nottingham-based Focus Consultants is celebrating after a project it was involved in received a key civic building award.

Interior of the Great Barn at Basing House.
Photo courtesy of Hampshire County Council

 Basing House and Grange Farm in Hampshire won the Conservation Award at the SCALA Civic Building of the Year Awards – a celebration of the cream of public sector architecture.

 The capital works were led by award-winning in-house conservation architect, Giles Pritchard, of Hampshire County Council's Property Services - a pioneering public service organisation with a long established national reputation for excellence and innovation.

 Focus Consultants was the project manager on the building and exhibition fit-out works for the scheme to preserve and repair the Grade I listed Great Barn and surrounding farm buildings on the site of the once extensive Tudor palace, destroyed during the Civil War.

 The judges said of the Hampshire County Council Property Services’ project: "Subtle adaptations and alterations have been carefully introduced to give a new purpose to this magnificent collection of historic buildings.

 The skills of all concerned with this beautiful piece of work deserve high recognition and reward." Focus partner Steven Fletcher, who worked on the scheme along with project manager/senior consultant James Peake, said: “This is excellent praise for the whole team involved in the Basing House and Grange Farm development, as the SCALA awards are deemed the most prestigious building design awards in the public sector.

 “It is the latest in a number of awards that have been given recently to projects that Focus Consultants has been involved in, and we are delighted that the skill and expertise of our teams are receiving such recognition.”

 Basing House conservation project, funded with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund, was praised for the clear research, care and attention given to preserving and restoring the historic detail of the site.

 The awards presented by SCALA – the Society of Chief Architects of Local Authorities – were announced at the Civic Building of the Year & Presidential Dinner 2012 in Manchester.

 Focus Consultants, with its head office at Phoenix Business Park, Nottingham, and branches in London, Princess Road East, Leicester, Endeavour Park, Boston, and Manor Farm, Aubourn near Lincoln, specialises in creative approaches to securing funding packages and delivering high quality projects across the UK.

 Since its creation in 1994, Focus has secured over £800 million of grant assistance, and delivered more than £1 billion of projects and programmes.

 It works across a range of sectors including heritage, arts and culture, education and tourism. For more information visit www.focus-consultants.co.uk

 Issued by Nottingham PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk

Architects Cox Freeman help create a multi-use church in Ripley

Nottingham-based architects Cox Freeman have helped a Derbyshire church become a hub of activity after managing a complete rebuild of the community facility.

The £595,000 project for Ripley Methodist Church involved demolishing the existing Victorian building and creating a new church and multi-purpose community centre.

The two-storey facility has now been officially opened and is home to a string of community groups for all ages, as well as the church congregation.

“We are delighted to hear that Ripley Methodist Church has become such an important focus in the community,” said Chris Boffin, managing director of Cox Freeman, based in Stoney Street, The Lace Market. “This has been the third church project that Cox Freeman has been involved in, and one that gave us immense pride to work on.”

Using plans originally drawn up by the Nottingham-based Howitt Partnership, Cox Freeman oversaw the project from tender to completion.

“It was a difficult site access wise, as the church was down a narrow road, surrounded by houses, but the project went very smoothly and we are very pleased to have been a part of it. It gives us great satisfaction to be involved in community schemes such as this, which are becoming something of a speciality for us,” added Chris Boffin.

Ripley Methodist Church bookings secretary Brian Rose said a wide range of community groups were now using the church, including a mother and toddler group, a friendship circle for retired people, and exercise and slimming groups. It was also being used for bingo sessions, demonstration evenings and parties - with bookings already being made as far in advance as October.

“We are very pleased with the building, which is being used by several different community groups and is being booked by a number of different agencies and organisations,” said Brian.

The project, which has been the result of several years of planning and consultation between the church and existing and potential users of the building, has created 366m² of space on the ground floor and 58m² of space on the first floor.

Facilities at the Wood Street church include a community hall, rooms and a modern kitchen.