The company’s Nottingham office is
collaborating with the Trent Bridge Community Trust to bring cricket back into
the heart of Nottingham.
Willmott Dixon’s trainees will construct a
new clubhouse that will become home for two cricket teams on Victoria
Embankment in a project that will be officially launched by the England and
Australian teams at the Trent Bridge Test Match in August.
Willmott Dixon has teamed up with its
supply chain and Nottingham architects Maber to invest time and materials worth
£230,000 towards the £600,000 cost, with other funding coming from Sport
England, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), WREN and Nottingham City
Council.
Work starts this month on the clubhouse
which will include four changing rooms, toilets, showers, disability access,
rooms for officials, kitchen area, and external viewing area.
Nick Heath, operations director at Willmott
Dixon, said:
“We have a big presence in Nottinghamshire through our many
projects and want to use this to provide employability and a lasting legacy
across the region. This project will be used as Willmott Dixon’s regional
Trainee Challenge Project, which will see our 12 local trainees get stuck into
building the clubhouse and deliver a fantastic facility. In the process, it
will be a great experience for them and their project management skills.”
Steve Williams, Maber director, said: “As a
Nottingham-based architecture practice, it was important for us that we got
behind the Field of Dreams project. Maber celebrates three decades in business
this year – and it was an honour to support this important community initiative
in 2015.”
Tracey Francis of the Trent Bridge
Community Trust said: “This is a hugely exciting, visionary project to build a
brand new clubhouse to be used for cricket in the summer and junior football in
the winter. At a time when we know that fewer people are playing cricket at
community level, our aim was to protect the future of cricket and ensure that
cricket continues to be played at Victoria Embankment for the next 100 years.”
The original plan had been to refurbish an
original pavilion at the embankment which had been in a state of disrepair for
two decades. But because the pavilion was so dilapidated, and because it would
not have met disability access requirements nor governing body specifications,
it had to be demolished.
Over the past three years, the
Nottinghamshire Cricket Board & ECB have invested in three artificial
cricket wickets at Victoria Embankment – with a highly successful ‘Last Man
Stands’ league operating through the summer months. 16 teams have been playing
in that league, and have developed a brand new cricket team called The Meadows.
The project has
attracted massive support from other local partner organisations and
supporters. They include: project managers Faithful & Gould, engineers
Curtins, engineers Couch Perry Wilkes, Jewsons, Derry Building Services, local
builders merchants Taylor Maxwell, Midland Building Products, J Wright Roofing,
PR and marketing agency Cartwright Communications & AR Signs.