Cannock catering spares group's £20m new home wins property award

The £20 million new home of First Choice Catering Spares on the Kingswood Lakeside site won the Commercial prize at last night's Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Awards 2018, held at the Grand Station in Wolverhampton.

First Choice moved its 140 staff into the purpose-build 100,000 sq ft facility last year after outgrowing its previous base in Hawks Green. The company has been based in Cannock for two decades, growing into the UK's leading supplier of spare parts for the commercial catering industry.

The big winner of the night was the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, which was named West Midlands Project of the Year.

More than 22 of the region's most impressive and community beneficial property schemes battled it out for top honours. The annual RICS Awards, West Midlands aim to celebrate inspirational initiatives in the region’s land, property and construction sectors. BBC Midlands Today news presenter, Mary Rhodes was the host for this year’s sell-out ceremony which attracted hundreds of local property professionals.

The conservatoire, the first digital one of the 21st Century – which covers approximately 113,000 sq ft of lecture and teaching space – also scooped the Design through Innovation award for its innovative approach to a multi-purpose building and for once again highlighting the diversity of the region and bringing further investment to Birmingham.

The highly acclaimed Project of the Year accolade is presented to the scheme which demonstrates overall outstanding best practice and an exemplary commitment to adding value to its local area.

RICS Judges said the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire project was a stand-out ‘Project of the Year’ winner for its complex structural, architectural and services solutions, making it a world class facility on a national and international stage .

Chairman of the judging panel, Gurdip Chamba, director at Crossland Property Consultants, said: “A highly complicated building, it involved complex structural, architectural and services solutions including modern audio visual, highly specified acoustic requirements and ‘box within a box’ designed areas to isolate rooms from the main building structure. The result is a ‘world class’ facility with national and international appeal which will attract further investment to the City. This grand project had stiff competition from other entries but in many ways stood ‘head and shoulders’ above other entries and has also received the Royal seal of approval.

As well as the First Choice building, the other winners included the new National College for High Speed Rail in Birmingham picked up the Regeneration award, while the Building Conservation prize went to the visitor centre, biomass plant, and Stables Café renovation at Attingham Park, Shrewsbury

Mr Chamba adds: “These winning projects are testament to the successful collaboration of the talented teams behind them. Together, their complimentary skills and exceptional vision has not only created some remarkable built schemes which the West Midlands can be immensely proud of, but they are also having a profoundly positive impact on their local communities.

All category winners will go on to compete against other regional winners at the national RICS Awards Grand Final on 2 November 2018 in London, for the chance to be crowned the overall UK winner in their respective category.