Wates and EFA agree contract on £4.89m Coventry school

THE Education Funding Agency (EFA) and Wates Construction have reached financial close on a Coventry school which is the first to be delivered under the £2.4bn capitally-funded Priority Schools Building Programme.

The move has seen the exchange of contracts for the construction of the new £4.89m building at Whitmore Park. Work on the 3,336m² primary education facility, which has been designed by CPMG Architects, is scheduled to begin in June.

The project forms part of the first batch of Priority Schools in the Midlands, the £36m contract for which was awarded to Wates Construction by the Department for Education in January 2013.

The programme will include the rebuild of four primary schools, one secondary school and a specialist educational needs school, totalling 3,687 pupil places.

Phil Harrison, Managing Director for Wates Construction, Midlands and North, said: “We are delighted to have reached such a pivotal point in the delivery of the government’s Priority Schools Building Programme.

“The past few months have been spent in close consultation with the EFA to develop the designs for the new facilities and establish the most cost efficient means to delivering these urgently needed school buildings. We are looking forward to commencing construction in June.”

The Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) was launched in July 2011 and has been centrally procured by the EFA on behalf of the Department for Education. In all, 261 of the UK’s schools will be rebuilt or renovated under the programme.

Wates’ presence in Coventry is also seeing the contractor deliver Coventry City Council’s Increasing Pupil Places Programme, a £13m contract which will deliver the expansion and refurbishment of five of the city’s primary schools.

Schools included in the Coventry Priority Schools Building Programme are:

– Whitmore Park Primary

– St Thomas More Primary

– Wyken Croft Primary

– Richard Lee Primary

– Ernsford Grange Secondary

– Alice Stevens Special School

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