31 January 2008
Capita Symonds is part of the ‘inspiredspaces’
consortium selected as preferred bidder for Nottingham City
Council’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF)
programme.
Capita Symonds will be providing partnering, educational and
building design services on the projects, with its design division
Capita Architecture providing architectural services.
The inspiredspaces consortium
– led by support services and construction company Carillion – has
been chosen to join the City Council and Partnership for Schools,
via Building Schools for the Future Investments (BSFI), to form the
Local Education Partnership (LEP) which will oversee the
project.
The LEP will deliver eight schools in the
current wave of the BSF programme, primarily through new build with
some refurbishment and remodelling. In addition, there are also
plans to provide three Academy Schools - all through new build.
The initial plans include construction of a
new secondary school in the north of the city (Big Wood), plus the
remodelling and refurbishment of Hadden Park High secondary school,
alongside a new Special Educational Needs Centre of Excellence on
the same site. Work is due to take place over two phases, beginning
in mid-2008, with all currently-planned construction works
scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.
The LEP will also deliver further new schools
for Nottingham City Council in subsequent waves of the BSF
programme and may deliver other community and regeneration
projects, subject to receiving the necessary approvals.
Chris Nelhams, Strategic Business
Development Director, Capita Symonds, said: “We are
delighted to be part of the Inspired Spaces consortium on this
exciting project. We are confident that the programme will be of
massive benefit to the people of Nottingham, providing the region
with a truly exceptional educational infrastructure for generations
to come.”
Rob Firth, Head of Capita
Architecture, said: “The Capita
Architecture team has already worked on a number of groundbreaking
and award-winning sustainable school projects such as the Academy
of St Francis of Assisi in Liverpool and the Howe Dell Primary
School in Hertfordshire. As a result, we have a complete
understanding of how to integrate the requirement of the new
schools agenda with the essentials of practical, sustainable
design. We’ll be working closely with other architects such as
Evans Vettori to ensure that Nottingham has a series of sustainable
schools and projects that will be the envy of the BSF
programme.”
Councillor Jane Urquhart, Nottingham
City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services,
said: “This is a major milestone for Building Schools for
the Future. We asked our bidders to be ambitious in their proposals
for Nottingham and to be as inspirational and imaginative as
possible. We are confident that together the City Council and
inspiredspaces can give Nottingham the most exciting
21st Century schools of which we can all be proud. We
can now work with inspiredspaces to finalise the proposals for the
partnership with a view to building work starting in the
summer.”