All Souls Bolton wins at RICS Awards North West

The Churches Conservation Trust’s All Souls Bolton regeneration project picked up four prizes at the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Awards North West at a ceremony hosted at The Monastery in Manchester last night (30/4/15).

The project was awarded in the three separate Awards categories at the self-styled ‘regional property Oscars’ – recognising Community Benefit, Building Conservation and Design through Innovation – and also scooped the overall Project of the Year award, bringing its total haul to four. All Souls Bolton also now progresses to the RICS Awards Grand Final at the Dorchester Hotel in London in October 2015.

It is not the first prize to recognise the £4.9m regeneration of Grade II* listed All Souls Bolton, and the Chair of All Souls Bolton Inayat Omarji picked up the English Heritage Angel Award for ‘Best Rescue of Any Other Type of Historic Building or Site’ for the project in November 2014, and the Heritage Alliance Heritage Heroes Award in 2011.

Matthew McKeague, Head of Regeneration at The Churches Conservation Trust said: “It’s just fantastic to have another high-profile stamp of approval for the All Souls Bolton project. The three project awards - for Community Benefit, Building Conservation and Design through Innovation – reflect exactly what regeneration means for the Trust, and to also win the overall ‘Project of the Year’ is just the icing on the cake. 

“But even apart from nights like this, just seeing All Souls Bolton now bustling with life every day really does make the nearly fifteen years of hard graft worthwhile. My heartfelt thanks go to our amazing project team, including All Souls Bolton, OMI Architects, Poole Dick Associates, Alan Gardner, Buro 4, Hoare Lee, Scott Hughes Design, Walter Carefoot & Sons and Lambert Walker, and also to our funders, particularly the Heritage Lottery Fund and Bolton Council.”

The RICS Awards North West judges said:

“The judging panel were unanimous in their admiration for a project that went beyond building conservation to include the rejuvenation and re-use of a building to benefit the wider local community. The project journey tells an inspiring story, and is concluded with an exemplar of building restoration and regeneration.