Member Article

Morgan Sindall Construction to deliver key SEND school in Eastbourne

Morgan Sindall Construction has been appointed as the main contractor to deliver a new special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) school in Hampden Park, Eastbourne.

Summerdown School is being delivered for the Department for Education (DfE) and will be managed by the Southfield Trust on behalf of East Sussex County Council. The new school will create 135 much-needed local school places for children aged five to 16 with autism and complex learning and medical needs.

Designed with Morgan Sindall Construction’s MySchool model, the scheme will see the construction of a brand new 22 classroom facility, with each room equipped with bespoke specialist equipment to aid mobility and learning.

The build will also comprise of a hydrotherapy pool, sensory rooms, food technology rooms and science labs as well as landscaped gardens, ensuring that all school users’ learning and development needs are met within an inspiring and supportive setting.

Prior to the project starting on site, almost 10 months of extensive archaeological investigation revealed flint deposits and evidence of multiple Stone Age buildings.

Guy Hannell, area director at Morgan Sindall Construction, said: “We are delighted to have been appointed to the Summerdown School project, an extremely important school which will help to meet the need for SEND school places within Eastbourne.

“Morgan Sindall Construction is committed to not only delivering first-class SEND school facilities, but also enriching the communities that sit at the heart of our schemes, with our site team and wider project partners engaging in various social value initiatives within the area as the build progresses.”

Construction at Summerdown School is scheduled to complete in the autumn of 2022, in time for the first cohort of students in the new academic year.

Morgan Sindall Construction has a strong track-record in delivering key SEND facilities across the Southern Home Counties region. In Brighton, the former Downs View Hollingdean School and Downs View Woodingdean School have merged and been refurbished and expanded as part of a major £6 million upgrade to create a new SEND facility for 155 children aged from two to 16-years-old.

Despite the disruption caused by COVID-19, the project team ensured the expanded Downs View School was able to begin welcoming the new students from the Hollingdean site in time for the 2020 academic year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Edward Hawkins .