Balfour Beatty appointed preferred bidder for schools in Blackburn and Darwen
(15/10/2009)

Balfour Beatty has been appointed as preferred bidder by Blackburn with Darwen and Bolton Councils for their £450 million PPP Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

The 25-year concession involves the delivery of a major capital investment programme comprising the extensive building or remodelling of nine schools in Blackburn and Darwen by 2015. Balfour Beatty will also be building or remodelling 15 schools, two special schools and seven pupil referral units in Bolton.

Commenting today, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Ian Tyler said: "This award demonstrates Balfour Beatty’s continuing strength and expertise in the education sector. We are delighted to be creating first-class learning environments for both students and teachers in Blackburn, Darwen and Bolton and look forward to delivering our tenth PPP education project."

All construction and facilities management will be carried out by Balfour Beatty. ICT services across all the schools will be delivered in conjunction with Northgate, a leading supplier of ICT solutions to the UK education sector.

Balfour Beatty will invest equity of £3.3 million into the delivery of the first school, Pleckgate High School, with the potential for a total of up to £20 million equity investment in the programme as a whole.

Earlier this year Balfour Beatty announced it had reached financial close on the £200 million Southwark BSF PPP contract which will deliver a major capital investment programme over three phases covering 12 schools across the Borough.

Balfour Beatty has nine existing PPP concessions in the education sector, three under the UK’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme at Southwark, Islington and Knowsley, five in the UK under the previous PPP model at Stoke, Bassetlaw, Rotherham, Birmingham and North Lanarkshire and one in Singapore, the Institute of Technical Education, College West.

These programmes involve the construction of approximately 100 new schools and learning centres and upgrading and maintaining well over 100 others. Balfour Beatty has approximately £60 million of committed equity in the sector.

Balfour Beatty also has construction contracts totalling £957 million for schools and academies schemes in Lincolnshire, Hackney, Haringey, Greenwich, Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Liverpool and West Sussex.