Historic Bretherton building gets design award
1:57pm Friday 29th July 2011
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DESIGNS to transform a historic Bretherton building have won a prestigious award.
The project to restore and convert the Grade 2* listed Bank Hall into apartments and create some exciting contemporary houses in the former orchard, in Bretherton, won the ‘Housing Design Award
2011’.
Beating off stiff competition from innovative building designs across the country it scooped one of 12 top prizes chosen out of 144 entries.
Councillor Alan Cullens, who is responsible for planning at Chorley Council, said: “The restoration project for Bank Hall has been on-going since the 1990s and the council has played a key role in
providing a steer for the concept.
“It’s important that we play a part in restoring our historic buildings that have fallen into disrepair and we’ve been able to help come up with a design that is modern and innovative while
incorporating some of the original features.”
The conservation project to restore the 17th century building, which has been on-going since the 1990s, will see the historic hall being restored and the clock tower will be open to the public on a
limited basis.
The council has led on enabling the design of the apartment block, which forms part of the overall conservation and restoration project at Bank Hall.
The work has been possible that to the efforts of the Friends of Bank Hall and the Heritage Trust for the North West, who have
worked tirelessly over ten years to get to where we are today.
The design has been co-ordinated between the developer Urban Splash and architect Riches Hawley Mikhail, with input from Chorley Council, and the plans were given approval by Chorley Council
earlier this year.
“People don’t always realise that the council’s planning function plays a much bigger role than just deciding whether an application should be approved or rejected,” said Councillor Cullens.
“The council plays a huge role in shaping the design of how a development will look and the success in gaining this award is testament to the great work of the team.”
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