Congratulations to Help for Heroes Personnel Recovery Centre, Plymouth, winner of the Commercial Project of the Year with a Value Over £5m at the Michelmores Property Awards 2015.
Help for Heroes' Personnel Recovery Centre is a 66 bed accommodation facility and rehabilitation centre housing a 25m swimming pool, hydro pool, recovery and consulting rooms and Cafe Hero. Both buildings have been designed and constructed to provide the best rehabilitation environment for military personnel wounded in action, as well as veterans from Help for Heroes who have suffered life changing injuries and illnesses.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Well, first of all, congratulations to everyone from Interserve Construction and everybody involved with the Help for Heroes Personal Recovery Centre, which is one of the most impressive projects that the judges have seen not just this year, but any year. Well, I think this year, of all years, when we're all thinking, or we should be thinking, about the First World War and the terrible things that people like my own grandfathers went through on the Western Front, I think we need to recognize that the veterans who, on our behalf have been out in Afghanistan and Iraq, have come back, many of them with the most terrible injuries. And it's simply wonderful that they are getting the care and respect that they need in a center in Plymouth which, at the same, is part of the local community. So the integration of this wonderful project with the surrounding parts of HMS Drake is a wonderful example of how architecture and humanity can work together. And it's absolutely terrific that it's funded privately by a charity, Help the Heroes.