A Welsh tourist attraction has been shortlisted for a prestigious award that was last won by a bridge in Hong Kong which cost £5 billion.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire last year completed a huge project which saw the creation of two new lakes, bridges, dams, cascades, a waterfall and an extensive network of paths.

The project, set in 300 acres of wooded parkland, is the largest of its kind undertaken in Wales and took five years to complete at a cost of more than £7 million. So impressive was the final result that it has now been shortlisted for a global prize.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) People’s Choice Award recognises civil engineering projects that have made a positive impact on their local communities. The awards were postponed last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the 2019 prize was awarded to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

That project cost 60.9 billion Hong Kong dollars, which is roughly £5.7 billion, and saw the construction of a bridge which connects Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao. At a 55km-long, it is the longest sea crossing in the world.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which won the prestigious ICE award in 2019

The work carried out at the National Botanic Garden of Wales cost just a fraction of that at £7.3m, but it’s a testament to the scale and ambition of the project that it is now up against five other projects to claim an award which would put the attraction even more firmly on the map.

The winner will be decided by a global public vote, and the Regency Restoration project at the garden, located off the A48 in Carmarthenshire between the villages of Porthyrhyd and Llanarthne, is up against huge schemes which have cost tens of millions of pounds.

One of those is the Boston Barrier Scheme in Lincolnshire which cost £120m. Others shortlisted include The Catalyst building in Newcastle, which cost more than £30m, the The NI Multimodal Transport Hub in Northern Ireland, which cost £27.5m, and the Rochester Bridge Refurbishment Project in Kent, which cost £12m.

The final project that the Botanic Garden must outdo is the Pooley Bridge Replacement in Cumbria, which cost £7m.

Bosses at the garden said the success of the project is down to a huge and co-ordinated effort involving the local community, local historians, staff and volunteers, engineers, architects, archaeologists and environmental contractors who were able to sympathetically restore the landscape which sits in the site’s Waun Las National Nature Reserve.

“The restored landscape is already proving a big draw and is a huge hit with our visitors," said Angharad Phillips, project officer at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, which celebrated its 20th birthday last year, having been officially opened by Prince Charles in July 2000.

"We’ve received some fantastic comments as well as record numbers of people through the gate this summer. We urge all these new-found fans along with all our old friends to vote for us in these prestigious awards."