Lady of the North named ‘Miss World’

Northumberlandia triumphs in prestigious international property industry awards competition

THE development of Northumberlandia, the world’s largest human landform, by regional property and energy firm the Banks Group and the Blagdon Estate, has been chosen as the winner of the Best Landscape Architecture category in the ‘World’s Best’ final of the 2013 International Property Awards.

Northumberlandia qualified for the awards after winning its category in the 2013 UK Property Awards in October, and was competing against the winners of eight equivalent awards programmes representing Africa, Asia Pacific, Arabia, Canada, Caribbean, Central & South America, Europe and the US.

Projects in Turkey, Malaysia and Mexico were also shortlisted in the category in which Northumberlandia triumphed.

Now in their 20th year, the International Property Awards celebrate the highest levels of achievement by companies operating in all sectors of the commercial and residential property industry.

Blagdon and Banks wholly funded Northumberlandia’s creation, investing around £3 million in the project and taking two-and-a-half years to construct the landform using 1.5 million tonnes of carefully selected stone, clay and soil from Banks’ adjacent Shotton surface mine.

Northumberlandia, which is now managed by independent charity The Land Trust in association with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and Azure Charitable Enterprises, has proved extremely popular with both local residents and visitors to the region, with more than 100,000 people visiting the site over the last 12 months.

Earlier this year Northumberlandia was chosen as the winner of the Tourism & Leisure category of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) North East Renaissance Awards, which honour ‘projects that make an outstanding contribution to and demonstrable impact on tourism and leisure facilities in the region’.

The landform was also shortlisted for the Excellence in Planning & Design for the Public Realm category of the national Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Planning Excellence.

Katie Perkin (pictured), communications manager at the Banks Group, said: ‘Winning this global award provides a wonderful finale to a fantastic first full year for Northumberlandia.

‘The quality of the landform’s design and construction, and the cultural, community and tourism impact that she’s having have been widely recognized by both a range of awards and the tens of thousands of people who’ve already been to visit her.

‘The projects against which Northumberlandia was competing for this latest award represent the very best in landscape architecture around the world, so the award is a real coup for everyone involved with the project and north-east England as a whole.’