The winner of the Civic Society's Design Awards....

Tonbridge Civic Society held their Design Awards last night at Somerhill House. It was a glorious evening so the 100 or so guests were treated to delightful views as they sipped some very quaffable chilled white wine on the terrace. The food was incredibly good considering that the caterers were more used to doing the school dinners at Somerhill (which is a school for its day job) and especially considering the tickets for the whole evening, including wine, were only £12 each. On to the business end of the evening, the awards themselves, and this year they were interesting, informative and even at times entertaining. John Durtnell, of the main building contractor on the winning project, Durtnell's, in particular skilfully managed to fit in a three year, £11m project into a twenty minute presentation. Not quite the ten minute slot he was allocated but, nevertheless, some going! The winning project? Tonbridge School's Sports and Media Centre. Head Master Tim Haynes, sung it's praises in a short but very eloquent speech and informed the audience that the project had been decades in the melting pot and, due to the drive of the school's Director of Sport and the out going Bursar, Ray Hart in particular, it had finally come to fruition. It's worth going along to this event, which is held about the same time every year; its good to know what the main building projects in the town have been and to hear the builders and architects speaking about them and the pride that they give them. Someone told me today that Durtnells have been a local family business since 1591! If that's true then it's uplifting to know that such a comapny can survive this long by offering a great service and being involved in some major projects like this one....