A Happy Client

The first ever Medway Design and Regeneration Awards was held on Friday the 16th June to celebrate the past 10 years of new development and regeneration in Medway.

Clay director Camilla Prizeman attended the evening with long standing clients from Medway Council, Rob Dennis ( Head of Property & Capital Projects ), Anthony Wallner ( Capital Programme Manager ) and Dean Parker ( Project Manager ). We didn’t expect to win anything against the competition on show.

By the end of the evening the team had picked up the award for best public building- community for Medway Park ( extension and refurbishment of former Black Lion Leisure Centre ), and the award for best community building- education for Walderslade Primary School, and Camilla had given, in her own words, the ‘worst and most unprepared acceptance speech ever’.

We don’t often blow our own trumpet, but the 2 regeneration awards are vindication for years of worry and stress, working against the odds as a small regional practice in a difficult chosen field— the regeneration of North Kent— 17 years of hard graft.

Medway Park won’t win any beauty parades but as a community project it delivered what the community needed, a centre of sporting excellence completed within budget, and completed in time to host the 2010 Modern Pentathlon World Cup, and in time to serve as a training centre for Olympic and Paralympic teams in 2012, and, more importantly, serve the local community and increase the Centre’s turnover more than 3-fold, ensuring its continued financial viability.

Walderslade Primary School did win a Kent Design Award in 2012, but this retrospective award does partly make up for the fact that the RIBA shortlisting judge sent to look at one of our most mature design projects at the time, did not even step inside the building when he wrote it off.

Rob Dennis ( Head of Property & Capital Projects ) holding the awards

Walderslade Primary School, winner of Best Community Building - Education