Property and Construction Excellence Awards Launch

10 October 2013

Property and Construction Excellence Awards Launch

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Search for top building projects expands to reflect property and construction excellence

The RICS's annual search for Northern Ireland's top building projects is expanding to reflect the full breadth of excellence across the local property and construction sectors.

The organisation's 2014 awards will include four new categories for projects undertaken in the Tourism & Leisure, Commercial, Infrastructure, and Residential sectors.

In total there are now eight categories in the highly-regarded scheme, in addition to the top award of Project of the Year, which is chosen by judges from the various category winners:

· Building Conservation

· Commercial

· Community Benefit

· Design & Innovation

· Infrastructure

· Regeneration

· Residential

· Tourism & Leisure

RICS Northern Ireland Awards Judging Chairman, Alistair Dunn, says that the awards will now be an even bigger and better showcase of inspirational recent developments in the local built environment.

"We are delighted to expand the RICS Northern Ireland Awards to provide enhanced recognition of the excellent work being undertaken by property and construction professionals," he says.

"There have been some fantastic local tourism, leisure, infrastructure, residential and commercial projects in recent years, and the expanded awards will provide the opportunity to highlight and celebrate the very best of these," he adds.

RICS Northern Ireland Director Ben Collins says: "The RICS Awards are a unique opportunity for everyone working within the property and construction sectors to have their work highlighted on a local and international platform. Last year we saw a record number of entries to the awards and, this year, we very much look forward to receiving submissions from an even wider group of exceptional projects."

The awards are open to entries from all practitioners in the property and construction sectors, and the deadline for entries is 17th January, with Northern Ireland winners to be announced at an awards ceremony at the Culloden Hotel on Thursday May 8th 2014.

Some of the Northern Ireland winners will also go forward to the RICS Awards Grand Final, where they will compete with other regional winners from across the UK and internationally, with winners announced at a gala event in London in October 2014.

Last year's Northern Ireland Project of the Year was east Belfast community scheme The Skainos Project<http://www.skainos.org/about> on the Lower Newtownards Road, which also won the top title in the Community Benefit category.

Titanic Belfast (Design and Innovation); Peace Bridge in Derry-Londonderry (Regeneration) and First Derry & Claremont Presbyterian Church (Building Conservation) were the other category winners.

Further information about the awards is available at: www.rics.org/awards or by calling the RICS NI office on 028 9032 2877.

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