£1 million refurbishment investment for EEF Venues

EEF Venues is investing £1 million in a major refurbishment project at its Westminster venue, Broadway House, and at its Woodland Grange Conference Centre in Warwickshire. 

The company has commissioned Coventry-based McCarthy Interiors, leading specialists in corporate refurbishment and space planning, to manage the project, which is due to start on 4th March 2013. 

David Vaughton, director of venues for EEF Venues, said: "This refurbishment project is a considerable milestone for us. We view it as a huge vote of confidence in EEF Venues and also in the marketplace itself, which despite challenging economic times, is still buoyant.  Competition from other venues, particularly within the Westminster area, is strong. However, as approximately 75 per cent of all of our business comes from repeat bookings, this drives the business during difficult times. But there is no room for complacency; it’s vital to keep improving facilities and investing to meet increasingly high delegate expectations."

At Broadway House, a six-storey, Edwardian building in the heart of Westminster, EEF Venues is up-grading all of the public access spaces and conference areas within the building. This will include lighting, décor and new carpeting throughout.

The project will also involve a complete refurbishment of the 114 en-suite bedrooms at EEF Venues’ Woodland Grange in Leamington, Warwickshire. 

David Vaughton continued: “We will be completely stripping out the bedrooms and en-suite bathrooms to provide more contemporary and stylish facilities for our delegates and guests, in keeping with our four star accommodation standards. This will include everything from changing the flooring, tiling and sanitary ware to décor, bed linen and soft furnishings. We are not just looking at the aesthetics, but have focussed on the design element from a practical, housekeeping viewpoint also, such as having wall-mounted toilets and sinks for ease of access for cleaning.”

Roger Day, general manager of McCarthy Interiors, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be working closely with EEF Venues on this exciting and substantial contract. For the past six months we have worked very closely with the team to help realise their vision. One key element of the design process has been a ‘demo room’ at Woodland Grange where we have refurbished one of the bedrooms as an example of how the rooms will look. We now look forward to taking our concepts to completion at both of these impressive venues.”