Hereford's Eign Gate wins at The LABC Awards

By Nicky Godding

30 January 2024

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Eign Gate, Hereford

More than 900 leading construction industry figures attended the LABC Building Excellence Awards at The Grosvenor House Hotel, London to celebrate best practice, quality, and exemplary standards in construction.

The LABC Building Excellence Awards focus on professional skills and competence, as well as exemplar 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 announces that the winner of Best Purpose-Built Accommodation was Eign Gate, Herefordshire.

Situated in the heart of Hereford City Centre, Eign Gate is the perfect example of how building control, architects, contractors and clients can work together seamlessly. The act of converting the building to en-suite student accommodation comprising of 71 units was complex due to the historic nature of the building, its age, and site restrictions in a central city location. Despite the challenges, the project team persevered, and the outcome is the successful transformation of an old building into a functional space whilst maintaining its original character.

The LABC public service building control team at Herefordshire Council demonstrated their knowledge and skills through weekly inspections and resolutions to issues in order to keep the project on track and minimise any construction issues. Despite the main contractor going into liquidation, the positive relationship between Building Control and on-site parties allowed the client to take over smoothly and for work to continue as planned.

Lorna Stimpson, LABC Chief Executive said: "I firmly believe that one of the best ways to see more good work is to praise building excellence and publicly acknowledge companies, designers, site managers and tradespeople who go that extra mile."

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.