DELIGHTED Bolton Wanderers' bosses were today celebrating news that the Reebok Stadium has scooped the country's top design award.

It was named as Building of the Year for projects costing up to £50 million at the British Construction Industry awards last night.

Bolton was also prominent in another top award at the industry's annual "Oscar" ceremony, where the prizes were presented by Culture Secretary Chris Smith.

Hong Kong International Airport, for which Watson Steel of Lostock produced the steelwork, won the 1998 international award.

The judges praised the Reebok Stadium as "a shining example of fitness for purpose. The carefully researched brief generated stunning design and quality of the highest order throughout."

Today Graham Ball, Wanderers' development director, said: "It was our intention to provide a superb stadium for all our fans, but never in the wildest dreams of our hardworking team at Bolton Wanderers did we ever expect to win the highest accolade in the land."

He said the club, the project team and Bolton Council realised early on that "the unique stadium design would be a catalyst to re-generate the adjoining area and this foresight has been rewarded with the creation of 3,000 jobs.

"The dream became a reality because of the feelings for Bolton Wanderers by everyone involved in the club and its tradition of over 100 years at Burnden Park.

"The Reebok Stadium now truly represents the heart of all the supporters and friends of Bolton Wanderers."

Not everyone, however, has shared the industry's enthusiasm for The Reebok.

Earlier this year, members of the Bolton and District Civic Trust turned it down for one of their awards and slammed it as sitting "like a great white crab in a semi-rural backdrop of fields and hills".

The details of the award for the stadium names builders Birse Construction, Lobb Sports Architecture and engineer Deakin Callard and Partners.

But it was also a night of double celebration for Watson Steel, who also provided steelwork for the construction of the Reebok Stadium.

The firm's £1.3 billion Hong Kong International Airport Passenger Terminal, which it carried out in a joint project with Japanese Nippon Steel, was praised by judges for "the lightness and simplicity of a building of awesome scale.

"The way in which the challenges of size, complexity and speed have been mastered, in a politically sensitive climate, deserves the highest praise".

More than 20,000 tonnes of steelwork were made in Bolton, shipped over to Hong Kong and the terminal was finished in an astonishing nine months.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.