East Dorset Housing Association(EDHA) and Bournemouth Borough Council have won the  Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Awards in the Community Benefit category for Boscombe Library and Chapter House. The award honours outstanding achievements in providing community facilities for a single or group of buildings.  In this award category judges have sought to identify evidence of positive local community feedback, improvements to local streetscape and high levels of public access to the scheme.

The Boscombe library and housing development, undertaken by Synergy Housing Group on behalf of EDHA, is a unique partnership between Bournemouth Borough Council’s Libraries, Arts Development and Housing Services and EDHA providing a new library and affordable homes. The library building has been transformed from a single storey building in need of modernisation into a contemporary building incorporating two floors with a mezzanine floor, and twenty-four 1 and 2 bedroom flats above on four storeys.

The inclusion of public art in the development was a key aim.  Two professional artists worked at different stages to ensure local people (through schools, general public and community groups) were engaged in a meaningful and creative way by contributing ideas and designs on themes of reading, books and libraries. This has resulted in a sense of achievement and pride: ‘When we grow up we can show other children what we made and they can look forward to being involved in local projects as well.’ said Ellen, from Bethany Junior School (11 years).

Nick Fry, Managing Director of East Dorset Housing Association, said “I am delighted that the RICS judging panel have chosen this community scheme as the winner in the South West. This was a successful partnership project and involved many other organisations who all worked well together to create a fantastic community facility for Boscombe. The library is now the most used community library in Bournemouth and we have created twenty four new affordable homes above the library for local households. The public art has completely changed the appearance of the area and has helped to achieve a sense of community, through creative consultation from the start of the project. We hope we can be involved in another project like this soon".

Fiona Astin, Group Development Manager at Synergy, said: "We are absolutely thrilled with this award, for which there were some truly excellent contenders.  It is testament to the true partnering that took place on the Boscombe library project.  So many people played their part to create a new place in the hearts and minds of the community in which it sits." Fiona went on to say "This build is an outstanding demonstration of what can be achieved through strong partnership between local authority, architect, contractor and us."

Councillor Peter Charon, Cabinet Member for Housing and Procurement said: “This striking development is an outstanding example of how partnership working and community involvement can successfully produce a thriving library and good quality, contemporary affordable housing for local people.

“This combination of a first class community facility and top quality affordable housing is reflective of two of the Council’s key priorities. It has already made a significant contribution to the wider regeneration work that is ongoing in Boscombe and is a further boost to community pride. We will definitely be taking a leaf out of Chapter House’s book for future projects.”

This development was funded by a combination of private finance raised by East Dorset Housing Association, social housing grant from Bournemouth Borough Council, a grant allocation from the Housing Corporation and funding for the p[public artwork from Arts Council of England Grants for the Arts.