Work is to get underway on a £400,000 scheme to restore the 40-year-old Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee, County Durham. Located in the town's Sunny Blunts Park, the pavilion was named after the Apollo space mission and was designed by the artist Victor Pasmore as a symbol of 1960s simplicity. Having become a target for vandalism in recent years, the pavilion project will see the replacement of a staircase providing access

Leicester Tigers Rugby Football Club (LTRFC) has submitted plans for a £100m redevelopment of the former Granby Halls and Fosse Day Centre sites. Situated adjacent to the club's Welford Road stadium, the outline planning application made to Leicester City Council includes the construction of a new four-star hotel. New facilities for the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) and the University of Leicester on the Granby Halls site, and a multi-storey

Plans for the £750m regeneration of the 468-acre (189.4-hectare) Longbridge site are set to move forward after Birmingham City Council (BCC) and developer St Modwen reached agreement over the scheme's Area Action Plan (AAP). A Planning Inspectorate report into the project in south Birmingham is expected at the end of January following the conclusion of a public inquiry into the AAP last month, despite a disagreement over the funding of

Activity holiday company, PGL, is redeveloping a former tennis centre near Hertsmonceux, East Sussex, into a new activity centre. The 21-acre (8.5-hectare) Windmill Hill site will undergo a £4m revamp and when complete, will offer courses for school and youth groups, as well as small summer camps and family groups during the summer. Facilities at the new centre will include a 2,000sq m (21,527sq ft) sports hall, a swimming pool,

Bournemouth Borough Council (BBC) has approved plans to build a new ice stadium complex at King's Park, despite admitting that it would not be able to subsidise the facility using taxpayers' money. Proposals for the development, which will be located near the home of AFC Bournemouth, received strong public support during a public consultation held late last year. An Olympic-sized ice rink with a separate area for curling is at

Plans for the £100m redevelopment of Donington Park motor racing circuit near Kegworth, Leicestershire, have been given the green light by the local authority. North West Leicestershire District Council granted planning permission for the first stage of improvements at the venue to be carried out in preparation for the British Formula One Grand Prix, which will be staged at the venue for 10 years starting in 2010. The scheme includes

Work has got underway on a three-month project to create new visitor facilities at the Angel of the North in Gateshead, north east England. Gateshead Council agreed to proposals in early 2008, which included the creation of new parking and toilet facilities at the visitor attraction, along with new footpaths. It is expected that work will be completed by April, and will see the new facilities located well back from

Property fund manager Highcross has submitted plans for a mixed-use development on its 100-acre Lakeside North Harbour site in Portsmouth. Highcross, which has owned the site since 2005, intends to develop 750,000sq ft of office space alongside a 14-acre lake, accompanied by a 70,000sq ft hotel, a conference centre, two wind turbines, shops and a medical centre. The project has been designed by West Sussex-based architects Thorpe Wheatley. The site

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, is set to complete its revamp during the year and will reopen to the public on 14 February. The redevelopment work will be completed in stages and finished phases include the revamp of the Entrance Hall, with a more user friendly reception desk; a new glass corridor leading people to the upgraded Café Bowes; and the extension of the museum's retail facilities.

Marriott Hotels has completed a redevelopment programme that saw 38 of its UK hotels being upgraded. The 18-month, £120m project included the refurbishment of 5,000 bedrooms, the introduction of 31 new restaurants and bars, and refurbishment work on 300 meeting rooms. Thirteen major function spaces have also been upgraded and seven leisure facilities improved. The largest individual investments in the programme were the £10m revamp of the London Marriott Hotel

A number of changes are to take place at the 67-acre development in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. The changes relate to The Harmon Hotel & Spa which include postponing the opening of the hotel to late 2010 and cancelling The Harmon residential condominium component. This has increased the company’s total cost savings to US$600m (441.9m euro, £399.1m). In addition, the postponement will defer a further US$200m (147.3m euro, £133m) in

Science Oxford has closed for two months to allow work to get underway on a £250,000 refurbishment of the centre, which is expected to take two months. The project includes the upgrade and relocation of the children's science gallery, as well as the integration of a refreshment area into the ground floor adult exhibition space, and the installation of new audio-visual equipment in the first floor performance room. Leicester-based museum

A new large casino could be established at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London's Docklands after it emerged that it was among several contenders bidding to hose the proposed venue. Discussions are currently ongoing between the centre, casino operators and the local authority, Newham Council, to investigate the possibility of locating a casino at the ExCeL, which is situated at Royal Victoria Dock near Canning Town. A spokesperson for ExCeL

Kirklees Council has unveiled the initial designs for a proposed new leisure centre in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The £26m complex will be built on the Spring Grove car park in Springwood, and will form part of a wider regeneration project which includes the relocation of a Tesco supermarket to the site of the existing sports centre in Southgate. Proposals for the new centre, which is scheduled to open in Spring

Waverley Borough Council has announced amendments to its proposals to refurbish a portfolio of leisure centres in Surrey, following detailed surveys of the sites. Owing to the bad structural condition of the 37-year-old Godalming Leisure Centre, the council has now decided to allocate £2.6m worth of investment to replace the aging building with a new one. Waverley’s portfolio holder for leisure, cllr Roger Steel, explained: “The increased financial costs incurred

A new scheme to preserve ten iconic cultural heritage sites in Wales is set to benefit from a £2m cash injection from the Welsh Assembly Government. Funding for the Welsh Cultural Heritage Initiative will be set aside from the Welsh Assembly Government's Strategic Capital Investment Fund, and will also go towards making the ten sites safe and accessible for visitors. Seven sites to be included as part of the scheme

Salford City Council (SCC) has opposed proposals to build a new international standard racecourse near Manchester as part of a major development project put forward by developer Peel Holdings. The project is set to go before a public planning inquiry next year, although the council met to discuss the plans on 18 December in order to register its formal view, unanimously rejecting the proposals. The racecourse, complete with a 6,000-seat

Premier Inn, the Whitbread-owned budget hotel chain, has unveiled plans to build a new purpose-built floating hotel in Hartlepool Marina, Durham, during 2009. The 54-bedroom 'floatel' will be designed to float vertically with the tide to ensure that guests avoid sea sickness, while sleeved piles driven into the marina will restrict horizontal movement. It will be the first property of its kind in the UK, and will be linked to

One of the oldest museums in Britain, the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology at Oxford University, is to close the public until November 2009 as part of a major redevelopment project. First opened in 1683, the museum is undergoing a £61m revamp including the creation of a new 8,812sq m (94,852sq ft) exhibition hall, which will double the amount of available display space at the attraction. The museum has

Work on a new multi-million pound hotel development in Southampton has been put on hold by developer Ocean Village Resorts (OVR) due to the current economic downturn. The £60m scheme, which was given the green light by Southampton City Council (SCC) planners in July, includes the 13-storey, 224-bedroom Millennium Ocean Village Hotel and a waterfront events piazza. Other facilities incorporated in the development include a restaurant, a cafe bar, a

Plans for the £15m redevelopment of Snetterton motor racing circuit in Norfolk have been given the green light by Breckland Council. MotorSport Vision (MSV), the company which owns the motor sports venue, received approval for the scheme in September three years after first revealing its plans for the circuit. The project is intended to transform Snetterton into a hub of the UK motor racing industry, and includes changes to the

The redevelopment of Carnegie Leisure Centre in Dunfermline has received a funding boost after sportscotland agreed to contribute £1.1m towards the project. Fife Council is leading the scheme as part of a £50m investment in local sports facilities, which will also see the redevelopment of the Fife Institute of Physical and Recreation Education in Glenrothes, and a new swimming complex in Kirkcaldy. Designs for the refurbished Carnegie Leisure Centre have

Plans for a £12m hotel complex adjacent to Bilston Town Football Club have been submitted to Wolverhampton City Council. The club, which submitted the plans, hopes that the development will revitalise the 113-year-old site and give it a new lease of life following several vandalism attacks. The complex, to be called Stadium Hotel, will feature 60 bedrooms, a gym, a restaurant and a juice bar, as well as retail units.

A planning application is to be submitted as part of a £6m project to transform the General Offices at a former South Wales steelworks into a new visitor attraction. The scheme to redevelop the Grade-II listed building at The Works:Ebbw Vale is a joint venture partnership between Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council and the Welsh Assembly Government. Once the administrative centre of the steelworks, the General Offices building is the

The world's first refrigerated beach will be created next to the new AED2.3bn (£406m, 438m euro, US$626m) Palazzo Versace Dubai resort in the United Arab Emirates. The Sunday Times reported that a network of pipes will run beneath the beach containing a coolant to absorb the heat from the surface so that guests can avoid having to walk across hot sand. Located on the edge of Dubai creek, the hotel's

The National Theatre on London's South Bank has commissioned architects Haworth Tompkins to produce a masterplan for the development of the Grade II-listed building. Haworth Tompkins beat architects Dixon Jones, Levitt Bernstein, Allies & Morrison and David Chipperfield to win the commission. The masterplan is expected to build on Haworth Tompkin's previous refurbishment work on the theatre's studio annex, completed in November 2007. It is likely the plans will include

A new vision for the 20-year regeneration of Gateshead town centre, Tyne and Wear, has been unveiled by the local authority. Gateshead Council has backed a report detailing a blueprint for the long-term redevelopment programme, which will see the town transformed by 2030. Proposals outlined in the Gateshead Centre Regeneration Delivery Strategy include a new creative quarter where specialist businesses will mix with artists in a conservation area, as well