AFTER riding out a storm of controversy when it was first planned six years ago Mudeford's enlarged lifeboat station on the quay has won a national design award.

The boathouse and attached two-storey office, crew room and stores has been named best small project in the 2005 civic building of the year awards organised by the Society of Chief Architects of Local Authorities.

Architect Keith Martin whose DLM Design practice in Christchurch drew up the scheme and RNLI shoreworks engineer Adam Littlejohn attended the SCALA national conference in Liverpool to receive the framed certificate and plaque which will be displayed in the lifeboat station.

"We are very proud of the lifeboat station and delighted that this project succeeded when submitted by Christchurch council earlier this year," said Mr Martin.

It was Mr Martin's design which broke the long-standing deadlock between the needs of the lifeboat service for a larger building and the constraints of council planning policy for the Mudeford Quay conservation area.

The location on the bustling quayhead site - a fishing dock, dinghy park, and tourist attraction on the shores of the environmentally-sensitive Christchurch Harbour, also brought a tide of objections from local interests.

But a costly and time consuming planning appeal looming on the horizon, after planning councillors finally rejected the RNLI's original scheme in 2001, was averted when Mr Martin's complete redesign of the project was approved the following year.

The new lifeboat station, built on the site of the 20-year-old boathouse it replaced, was completed in the summer of 2003.

Among the features of the award-winning design are the large windows on the landward side of the long, low timber-clad boathouse, which not only help to reduce the mass of the building against the harbour backdrop but allow passers-by to view the lifeboat.

The two-storey section finished in pale sand-coloured render with clay tile roof is designed to blend in with the traditional architecture of nearby historic buildings on Mudeford Quay while the interior provides modern facilities for the lifeboat crew in line with latest RNLI standards.

First published: November 10