Carillion to build new West Bromwich school

A new programme of school building in the Midlands, including rebuilding of a site in the Black Country, will generate £187 million for Wolverhampton-based construction giant Carillion. more

The firm announced it has secured the Midlands Priority School Building Programme, which involves eight new schools in total.

The Phoenix Collegiate Academy campus in Clarkes Lane is being revamped as part of the Government's £6 billion Priority Schools programme.

The school will be completely rebuilt with only one of its current buildings – its learning centre – to remain. They will be replaced by a single three-storey L-shaped 'superblock'. The school's sports hall will also be extended and refurbished and a new multi-purpose games area added.

The work on replacing existing sub-standard buildings for the new schools will be carried out over a two-year period.

Carillion also expects to invest £5.5 million of its own money in the project and will also build the schools at a capital cost of £138m.

Hard facilities management and life-cycle maintenance services will also be delivered by Carillion and these services are expected to generate approximately £49m of revenue over the life of the concession contract.

Carillion will use this project as a further opportunity to provide training and apprenticeships.

Chief executive, Richard Howson, said: "We are delighted to have achieved financial close on this important schools programme. Carillion is a market leader in the education sector, having delivered some 150 schools over recent years, many of which were Public Private Partnership projects.

"This latest project has been an excellent example of collaboration between the public and private sectors and we look forward to working with the Education Funding Agency to deliver state of the art facilities to support its objectives for creating outstanding learning environments for students."

The other schools include three in Birmingham and one each in Derbyshire, Coventry, Warwickshire and Nottingham.