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 


 


that Costain faces on its Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in Lewisham. A dozen secondary schools in the south-east London borough


H


are being replaced or rebuilt by the contractor as part of its BSF programme. The Learning21 consortium, comprised of Costain and Babcock, has been working on the programme since 2008 after winning the concession the previous year. The original deal covered 12 schools and was valued at £210


million in capital expenditure. Since then, swathes of BSF and education projects have been put on hold or cut by the coali- tion government but in contrast the Lewisham programme has been maintained. The deal was procured as a Local Education Partnership – or


LEP as the contracts are known – with Costain one of four orig- inal shareholders along with the London Borough of Lewisham, VT Group and Building Schools for the Future Investments, the investment arm of Partnership for Schools. Partnership for Schools, the government quango responsible


for delivering BSF and other education-related schemes, also held a stake in the LEP but has since not taken up the opportu- nity to invest in the most recently closed tranche of PFI schools. This equity was taken up instead by Lewisham.


emmed in by houses on one side and a community cen- tre and park on the other, the site for the new Deptford Green Secondary School typifies the sort of challenge


That was one of a number of changes made to the programme


since the initial agreement was struck. In spring 2010, VT Group merged with Babcock – now the facilities manager on the programme – while the arrival of a new project director for Costain, Brian Fisher, also saw a number of alterations. The first two projects to move onto site under the programme


were Sedgehill School and Conisborough College (formerly Catford High School), which were both designed by architect ACP and are both now complete. Fisher took charge of the pro- gramme soon after these two initial schemes moved on site and he pushed through a swathe of changes to the whole process. These changes included replacing ACP with a brace of archi-


tects: Watkins Gray International (WGI) and HGR. Both architects are now directly involved in designing projects under development. “We have tried to standardise design as that leads to efficiencies,” explains Fisher. This alteration has also given Leaning21 flexibility when it


comes to assigning architectural commissions within the pro- gramme. This was demonstrated by HKR getting the brief to design Prendergast Vale College. Fisher adds: “Prendergast had listed building status and we felt that was better suited to HKR.” Prior to Fisher’s arrival, all the structural engineering advice


also came through one consultant: SKM. From the third scheme to move onto site – Trinity, Lewisham (formerly Northbrook) – that all changed. Learning21 is only using one consultant again


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