Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (THFC) has unveiled revised plans for the Northumberland Development Project, which includes the club's new 58,000-seat stadium and a new public square. Initial proposals for the scheme released by the club in October 2008 had included a 60,000-seat stadium, but the club has decided to decrease the capacity in a bid to maximise the venue's atmosphere by seating spectators closer to the pitch. KSS Group is

The new Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is starting to take shape after work got underway on lifting the 2,800-tonne wave-shaped roof into place. The lifting of the 11,000sq m (118,403sq ft) roof, which is 160m (525ft) long, is considered to be the most complex engineering challenges of all the Olympic venues. Balfour Beatty is the contractor responsible for building the new aquatics centre, which

A £150m scheme designed to transform the centre of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, is back on track after property firm Nikal acquired the remaining shares in the joint venture for an undisclosed sum. The future of the mixed-use development had been thrown into doubt following the collapse of the David McLean Group, the North Wales-based developer which entered administration in late 2008. Plans for the Altair scheme includes a 3,000-seat ice

Three redevelopment proposals for Forest Hill Pools are due to be the subject of a public consultation this April in Lewisham, London. Lewisham Council's shortlisted leisure centre options come from HLM Architects, Allies + Morrison and Pollard Thomas Edwards architects. It is the second round of consultations to be held on the development, after the council was forced to rethink designs last year. The adjacent Louise House received a Grade

Bewdley Museum will reopen to the public on 2 May following a £500,000 revamp. Improvements at the museum include a brand new Café, new exhibition galleries and updated educational facilities. The museums brass foundry has also been refurbished and the saw yard building has been expanded to provide more space for educational l activities. Museum technician Dave Darby said: "There is still a lot of work to do before we

The completed £13.5m expansion of east London's Whitechapel Gallery is expected to open 5 April. The gallery, re-designed by Belgian architects Robbrecht & Daem and Witherford Watson Mann, is almost double the size after it merged with the adjacent Passmore Edwards library (built in 1892) increasing the 3,000sq ft space by 78 per cent. New features include three galleries dedicated to international art collections, new art commissioned by the gallery's

Londoners are being called upon to give their views on the accessibility of the capital as part of a new survey launched by the London Assembly in a bid to improve facilities for people with mobility issues ahead of the 2012 Games. The consultation will seek to improve access for disabled residents, older people and parents with small children to restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions in order to ensure that

Work on the new Handball Arena for the 2012 London Olympics is set to get underway this summer after the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) appointed Buckingham Group Contracting to build the venue. The Milton Keynes-based company will work with HOK Sport on the construction of the 7,000-seat facility, which has been designed by Make Architects with PTW and Arup and is set to become a 6,000-seat multi-sports venue after the

The Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London will shortly reopen following an extensive refurbishment. Spearheaded by the London Development Agency, the 18-month project will lengthen the main 50-metre swimming pool and the diving pool to meet current specifications and upgrade the arena, exercise studios and all changing rooms. The listed building is also being extensively repaired with new plumbing and rewiring. The centre is scheduled to reopen next month.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland is in urgent need of a huge restoration fund to prevent the landmark holocaust site from crumbling into the ground. A Foundation was established in January to campaign leaders in Europe to donate money towards a 120m euro (£110m) Perpetual Fund to help conserve the WWII memorial to human tragedy for the education of future generations. The capital will be invested and ring-fenced by

Plans to renovate the Sydney Opera House in Australia are threatened after the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd refused to back the estimated AUS$900m (£433m, €466m, US$630m) project claiming there was better use for the money. The announcement came the day after the New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees said the restoration was under "active consideration" by the budget committee. If the seven-year-long renewal project was to go ahead, the opera

Plans for a £45m mixed-use leisure scheme in Bishop Auckland, County Durham have got the go-ahead from Hazel Blears, secretary of state for communities and local government. The project, now formerly approved by the Government Offices for the North East, is led by developer Terrace Hill and will result in vacant land being redeveloped into a 150,000sq ft (13,935sq m) leisure park. The park is designed by Lister Associate Architects

Designs for a £10.3m Sports, Culture and Leisure Village in Heywood, in Manchester, are currently the subject of a public consultation. The proposed development, designed by KKA Architects, includes a sports hall, a six-lane, 25m swimming pool, a learners' pool, a dance studio, a 90-station fitness suite and a youth gym, training rooms as well as indoor and outdoor changing rooms. There will also be an additional floodlit artificial turf

Natural England and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) have called upon the government to help tackle the recession by investing in more green spaces for towns and cities. Ahead of chancellor Alistair Darling's budget statement on 22 April, both organisations have said that funding should be diverted away from road-building schemes to provide new parks, trees and open spaces, which will also help combat climate change.

The first sod has been cut on the £13.6m redevelopment of Bath’s Holburne Museum of Art. When it reopens, the Holburne will house a collection of fine and decorative arts, and will be fully accessible for the first time. A new garden café will also be built. The scheme has already received £10.6m of funding, comprising grants form the Heritage Lottery Fund, Lord and Lady Sainsbury’s Linbury Trust and Bath

The white water rafting and canoeing course at the National Water Sports Centre at Holme Pierrepont, Nottingham, has reopened to the public following the completion of upgrade work at the facility. Improvements at the course have included improved flow and water depth, a more flexible layout and use of features and the creation of a new intermediate paddler and rescue area, as well as new concrete platforms to provide launch

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council (WPBC) has been successful in its legal battle with a developer that failed to start work on the multi-million pound redevelopment of Weymouth Pavilion in Dorset. Howard Holdings, which was selected from a shortlist of three companies as the preferred developer for the pavilion scheme, was issued with a winding-up order by the High Court on 19 March. WPBC said that it had no option

The completion of the controversial £300m Caltongate development in Edinburgh is now in doubt after developers Mountgrange Capital went into administration. The developer collapsed after HBOS withdrew its financial support for the scheme, which was given planning approval in September 2008. The project, designed by Allan Murray architects, was to include a new public square and a five-star hotel with a restaurant, a health spa and a café at a

Perth and Kinross Council have approved plans for the development of a £20m sailing resort on the banks of Loch Tay at Croft-na-Caber, near the village of Kenmore, mid-Scotland. Architect Eric Strickland, the senior partner of McKenzie Strickland Associates, is behind the proposals, which have been developed in partnership with business partner Paul Sale through their Strathtay Developments vehicle. PKC's development committee voted in favour of the scheme on 18

A gala event has been held to mark the closure of the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Kent, which is set to undergo a £25.6m revamp after the local authority approved plans for the redevelopment of the venue. Canterbury City Council (CCC) voted in favour of the proposals on 19 March, which will include a new 1,200-seat auditorium with improved acoustics and sightlines, as well as a second, smaller performance space

Repair work has got underway in Reading, Berkshire, at the site of one of the town's most historic monuments, Abbey Ruins. Health and safety concerns had been raised about certain parts of the site last summer following a detailed inspection of the monument, undertaken by Reading Borough Council (RBC). IJP Building Conservation has been appointed by the council to carry out the repairs, which have initially focused on the Cloister

St Modwen, the developer behind the proposed £100m regeneration of Bognor Regis, West Sussex, has been granted permission to put the scheme on hold for three years due to the economic downturn. Arun District Council approved a request from the company to delay the submission of a planning application for the project until the property market improves, although all other elements of the scheme will remain the same. Initial plans

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has confirmed that the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, south east London, will remain as the host venue for shooting events at the 2012 Olympics. Both the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the National Shooting Centre at Bisley, Surrey, had put themselves forward as alternative venues for the events, but the ODA has now decided that it will pursue a planning application for

Portsmouth Football Club (PFC) has announced that its plans for a new stadium have been put on hold due to the economic downturn and will instead extend its existing Fratton Park ground as a short-term solution. The club has been working in partnership with developer Sellar and Portsmouth City Council (PCC) on the proposals for a new 40-45,000-seat stadium at Horsea Island near Port Solent, Hampshire. But PFC has now

Leicester Tigers Rugby Football Club (LTRFC) has been granted conditional planning approval for the £100m redevelopment of the former Granby Halls and Fosse Day Centre sites. The project, which was given the green light by Leicester City Council, will be situated on land adjacent to the club's Welford Road stadium, and includes the construction of a new four-star hotel. New facilities for the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) and the

Manchester City Council has made a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in order to secure funding towards the restoration of the historic Heaton Hall. The council has earmarked the restoration of the hall as the final part of a three-phase programme of improvements at Heaton Park in North Manchester, which has already seen the renovation of four of the park's other historic listed buildings including the Dower House

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) has put forward its case to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to host shooting events at the 2012 Games. Rising costs have cast doubt over whether the ODA will continue with plans to build a temporary 7,500-seat venue at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, with LBBD arguing that the development of a venue at Barking Riverside would save £10m. The borough