Oct 5 2009
Kier has beaten Willmott Dixon as preferred bidder for a £200m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) deal for Telford and Wrekin council.
Earlier this year Carillion and Balfour Beatty, were ruled out of the bidding. Work on site is expected to kick off next March with the Abraham Darby School scheme, and most of the council's BSF programme is expected to be completed within five years.
As usual with BSF schemes, the Telford and Wrekin deal is a mix of new build and refurbishment work. The programme, dubbed Borough Towns Initiative Sports and Learning Communities, involves a total of 14 schools, plus three pupil referral units.
Kier wins BSF bid
Five schools will be new build, with the rest refurbished. A source said: "Some of the refurb projects will be so extensive you can almost call them new build."
The BSF scheme will be delivered under the Academies framework system rather than the more usual Private Finance Initiative method.
It is understood that the risks involved in purchasing land for the schools programme led to the Telford and Wrekin scheme going down that route instead.
An insider said: "Earlier on, one attempt at buying land fell through so the Academies method was seen as the safer one."
Also unusual on a BSF scheme is that the council will provide ICT facilities, not the winning contractor. The Telford and Wrekin project is Kier's 14th scheme secured through the Academies framework.
Source: http://www.kier.co.uk/