Contractor named for £25M Blackpool Winter Gardens project

Blackpool Council has named McLaughlin & Harvey as the preferred bidder for its Winter Gardens conference centre job.

The brand new conference centre will increase the capacity of the Blackpool Winter Gardens, allowing it to host over 7,000 conference delegates at any one time; potentially bringing major conferences back to the resort, as well as creating jobs and boosting the local economy.

The new centre will have a link to the existing facility and will be built on the site of the former car park on Leopold Grove. It is hoped that construction work will start this winter, with a view to welcoming conferences by spring 2019.

Cllr Gillian Campbell, Deputy Leader of Blackpool Council, said: “This is a really exciting step forward in upgrading the Winter Gardens to a conference venue fit for the twenty first century.

“We already know that the Empress Ballroom and the Opera House provide perfect venues for keynote speakers and housing delegates, but to have a proper exhibition and welcoming space is exactly what is needed to try and bring major league conferencing back to the resort.

“We are keen to make sure that while the design for the new centre is contemporary, it still remains in keeping with the historical and heritage aspects of the rest of the Winter Gardens, and we have been talking with heritage experts to make sure that we can retain the beauty of the Winter Gardens building within the new build.

Blackpool Council has commissioned the plans from architects Bisset Adams, who previously worked on designing the refurbishment of the Central Library in Blackpool, along with Max Fordham Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, Morgan Tucker Civil and Structural Engineers and Right Solution conference consultants.