A REINVENTED High Street attraction is among entries for this year’s prestigious Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Awards.
The Scala Cinema and Arts Centre, in Prestatyn, is in the running for the Community Benefit Award at the ceremony celebrating inspirational building projects.
The project is being seen as helping revitalise Prestatyn town centre, providing access once again to film on a site with local memories of cinema going, training facilities, exhibition spaces with foyers, as well as meeting and training rooms.
Other entries from North Wales include the restoration of an early 20th Century house, a new criminal justice centre, a new visitors’ centre.
The RICS Awards consist of four categories: building conservation; regeneration; sustainability and community benefit. Once again, community benefit has proved to be the most popular category, attracting 36 percent of entries, closely followed by sustainability, a category which has soared in popularity recently with the increased awareness of environmental issues, with 33 per cent, regeneration projects attracted 17 percent of nominations, followed by building conservation which accounted for 14 per cent of the total entries.
Judging will take place during the spring with projects competing in the Welsh heat with winning entrants forming the shortlist for the Grand Final Awards.
The Welsh finals will be held at the Wheldone Building at Bangor University.
Cathy McLean, director of RICS Wales, said: “Despite one of the worst recessions in recent memory, it is great news that so many fantastic projects around Wales have been completed and it is something the local community should be very proud of.”
Source: The Journal – Published date: 02 March 2010 – Published by: Terry Canty
