Major honours for Southend Swimming and Diving Centre

The fabulous facility has already won the regional award in the Best Technical Innovation category of the National Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Building Excellence Award 2011.  

Now it has just been shortlisted as a finalist in this category of the organisation's national awards, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Tuesday 1st November.  

The Centre, at Garon Park, off Eastern Avenue, Southend, officially opened last autumn by world class swimming champion Mark Foster, swiftly achieved national renown.  

Already the British Olympic diving team has announced its intention to use the new centre as a pre-games training camp prior to London 2012. Its annual 5m and 1m assessment camps were held at the centre last November, and are due to be staged there again this November.  

The LABC Building Excellence awards recognise those who have devised interesting methods of complying with Building Regulations via new designs or technological innovation. The judges looked for new or unusual ways to overcome construction challenges.  

They said of Southend Swimming and Diving Centre: "Constructed on a restricted complex, this building had to overcome significant site, budget and operational constraints to achieve a first class diving facility."

The design and construction team had to come up with solutions to a wide range of construction issues. These included:

·         Anchoring the pool basin construction to the surrounding ground to resist upward pressure due to the high level of ground water.

·         Constructing the dive tower off site and bringing it  in as a complete structure

·         Reinforcing the end of the pool to withstand the weight of the dive tower

·         Carefully designing the side of the pool at the end to withstand the weight of the diving platform

·         Managing the building work in a contained area in between the existing Leisure and Tennis Centre, and the boundary.

·         Devising a new entrance to bring together the Swimming and Diving Centre, and the Leisure and Tennis Centre  

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council's Executive Councillor for Culture and Tourism, Councillor Derek Jarvis said: "We were thrilled that. Southend Swimming and Diving Centre won the regional award and it is doubly exciting that it is now competing with the country's leading projects. This means it is being recognised at the highest level.  

"It is a comprehensive and innovative high profile development, designed to be used and enjoyed by the community and also for Olympic training.  

"Special congratulations must go to the project team whose skills and close teamwork helped them to meet all the technical challenges admirably."