LABC Building Excellence Awards 2022 winner: Best Public or Community Building

More than 850 leading construction industry figures attended the LABC Building Excellence Awards at the Westminster Park Plaza Hotel to celebrate best practice, quality, and exemplary standards in construction.

The LABC Building Excellence Awards focus on professional skills and competence, as well as projects, with categories for ‘People’ and ‘Places.’

A panel of industry experts judged a selection of the highest quality projects, professionals, and teams from around England and Wales to showcase solutions to complex technical or construction issues, site constraints and technical innovation. The awards highlight the vital contribution public sector building control teams make as part of the project team, ensuring safe, sustainable, and high-quality construction projects. 

LABC is delighted to announce that the winner of the Best Public or Community Building is First Light Pavilion, Jodrell Bank, Cheshire. The project was designed by Hassall Ltd and built by Kier for the University of Manchester, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

First Light Pavilion at the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre is an exceptional project which included building the first concrete dome to be constructed in the UK for over 25 years. It is currently the largest concrete dome in the UK and across Europe. Specialist teams, working alongside Local Authority Building Control resulted in a structure that far exceeded the minimum requirement of Building Regulations especially in the area of air leakage where an impressive figure of 1.39 was achieved.

The LABC public service building control team from Cheshire East Council were integral to the success of the project with inspection plans in place and excellent communication at all stages of the project.

Congratulating the whole team on their success, Lorna Stimpson, LABC Chief Executive said,