Category 10 - Large commercial over £1 million
l Winner: WRW GROUP AND GEE CONSTRUCTION LTDFor the the Ffos Las Racecourse, Trimsaran.
(Stable Block & Weighing Rooms, Hospitality & Grandstand)
Architects : Powell Dobson
From left to right: Cllr Clive Scourfield, Andrew Collins, Ian Ashcroft, Stephen Rees, Haydn Matthews (Building Control Surveyor)
Sited on a ‘massive’ former opencast mine at Trimsaran near Llanelli, and nestled within the rolling hills and countryside of West Wales, ‘Ffos Las’ - Britain’s newest turf racecourse has a capacity of 15,000 spectators and a cost £22 million to develop.
Embarking on such an exceptional and challenging scheme within this vast 650 acre site meant that Building Control along with the design team of Powell Dobson worked with two individual construction companies – ‘Gee Construction Ltd’ and ‘WRW Ltd’ such was the scale and scope of the project. Building Control’s assisted to engage with both construction teams to ensure that each specific building was delivered albeit to differing time scales. It was therefore of paramount importance that all parties positively engaged with one another in order to drive the project forward. All the while, satisfying not only the requirements of the ‘Building Regulations’ and allied legislation but the stringent requirements of the ‘British Horse Racing Authority’, whilst simultaneously embracing the vision and aspirations of the client.
Facilities at Ffos Las consist of; a 500 capacity grandstand - including hospitality and restaurant accommodation incorporating boxes with private balconies offering exceptional views of the stunning rural backdrop whilst providing an excellent vantage point of the course, parade ring and winners enclosure. It also includes for the all important ‘judges tower’ building.
The racecourse complex of facilities also include a 120 unit first class stable unit, jockey accommodation block, weighing room, medical centre and technical administration block, administrative buildings, gatehouse and course management building, together with a raft of supporting hospitality buildings and ‘Tote’ betting facilities. This being the first racecourse to have been built in the UK for 81 years, it is undoubtedly a superb advertisement for Carmarthenshire!