Heywood Sports Village has won another prestigious national award.

Link4Life nominated the centre for 'Public Sector Project of the Year' for the Builder and Engineer Awards.

This is one of the construction industry's top awards and it recognises outstanding national projects which have all excelled in their own categories.

The short list of finalists included a museum in Southampton, a hospital in London, a retail and leisure development in Manchester, a youth housing project in Salford and a Social Housing development in Ireland.

Manager, Gary Smith, said, "In choosing Heywood Sports Village as the winner the judges particularly recognised its success in partnership working and local involvement and also how the community has 'voted with their feet' and are choosing to lead healthy, creative and active lifestyles."

Chair of Heywood Township, Councillor Alan McCarthy presented the award to Link4Life at last week's Heywood Township meeting. He said, "Heywood Sports Village has really proved its worth. Nationally, Sport England has identified it as an example of good practice and locally it has really demonstrated its value to the community as a whole."

Heywood Sports Village opened in September 2010 at a cost of £10.5 million. It was a joint funded project between Rochdale Borough Council, Heywood New Deal and Link4Life with additional grant funding from the Football Foundation and Sport England. Replacing facilities more than 30 years old it combines external artificial and grass pitches with a single structure housing sports hall, swimming pools and fitness facilities with broader spaces for youth and community use. In the first four months of opening it recorded a 222% increase in centre visits.