Vinci wins £18m Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens job

Great Yarmouth Borough Council has appointed Vinci as the main contractor for the first phase of restoration works at the town’s Grade II*-listed Winter Gardens.

The appointment marks a significant step in the multi-million-pound scheme, which will begin with enabling works in the autumn.

These include cleaning and stabilising the cast-iron structure, which has been closed since 2008 and remains on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register.

The project has received £12.3m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, £6m from the government’s UK Towns Fund and £500,000 from Historic England. Designs include high-performance glazing, modern heating and cooling systems, rainwater harvesting and extensive planting, with an emphasis on reducing energy use and whole-life costs.

The Winter Gardens, built in Torquay between 1878 and 1881 and relocated to Great Yarmouth in 1904, is the UK’s last surviving Victorian seaside glasshouse. It is scheduled to reopen in 2028 as part of a wider regeneration of the seafront.

Stakeholders involved in the design process include the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, John Innes Centre in Norwich, and the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability.

The scheme has already been recognised with the Architects’ Journal Retrofit Award in the Future Reuse category.