Fairfield Farm College in Dilton Marsh is celebrating after winning the award for the best community building at the 2013 LABC National Building Excellence Awards.

Principal Janet Kenward, who attended the awards on November 12 in London, said: “It’s great that we won. The building has made a huge difference to the curriculum that we can offer to the students.

“It includes our shop, café and conference room, which are where the students do a lot of their learning as we teach them real work skills by working with the local community.

“It’s a fabulous building and I’m so proud that it beat the other very interesting buildings up for the award.

“The builders and architects we worked with were brilliant, making sure we could run while work was ongoing and delivering the building that we wanted.”

The awards showcase building and design teams that have had to tussle with difficult technical or construction issues and building site constraints.

The specialist college, which works with students with learning difficulties, opened the new building at the end of 2011. It contains a conference room, farm shop, café and teaching rooms, with full access for the disabled.

Excellent communication between Ken Biggs Contractors and Wiltshire’s building control team meant the college was able to stay open throughout the construction.

As well as Bristol-based Ken Biggs Contractors, Hetreed Ross Architects and E&M West also worked on the project.