Member Article

Partner chosen for £175m Tyneside schools project

South Tyneside and Gateshead Councils have selected a Wolverhampton-based company as the selected bidder for their £175m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. The councils chose Carillion to become part of the Local Education Partnership (LEP), which will deliver 14 secondary schools over four years.

As well as investing some £2 million of equity in the project, Carillion will also provide facilities management services for the new schools over the life of the contract, which will run for 25 years. The LEP will provide further new schools for South Tyneside and Gateshead in subsequent waves of the BSF programme and may deliver other community regeneration projects.

Councillor Jim Foreman, South Tyneside Council’s Lead Member Children and Young People, said: “This a really exciting time for the project as we can now work with Carillion to finalise proposals for the partnership so that we can exploit this superb opportunity to create modern schools of which we can all be proud.”

John McDonough, Carillion chief executive, said: “We are delighted to have been selected for our first BSF project under the BSF programme, which we expect to be a strong growth area for the Group. “We have built an excellent partnership with South Tyneside and Gateshead Councils and look forward to working with them to provide state-of-the-art schools that will help them deliver first-class education and other community facilities.”

The Local Education Partnership comprises Partnership for Schools, South Tyneside and Gateshead Councils, Carillion and Royal Bank of Scotland. Partnership for Schools and South Tyneside and Gateshead Councils will provide 20% of the equity with the remainder being provided by Inspired Spaces, a joint venture between Carillion (40%) and Royal Bank of Scotland (40%).

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .