Topic Projects
Date 31 Mar 2021
Galliford Try, one of the UK’s leading construction groups, announces that it has signed contracts to build a new school for St Marylebone CE Bridge School in Westminster, the fifth award of an SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) facility its Building Southern business has received within the past few months, in deals totalling in excess of £50m.
The school is a co-educational Church of England Special Free School providing a high-quality education for statemented pupils aged 11- 16, whose primary needs are related to their speech, language and communication. The project will create a new main three-storey building to house up to 70 pupils, sharing the site of the Wilberforce Primary School in West Kilburn.
Following the success of the completed and well-received Cleeve Meadow School for the London Borough of Bexley, the Building Southern team has now been selected through the Department of Education Framework to design and build Cornerstone School, again in Bexley, on behalf of the Trinitas Academy Trust. The school will provide places for 90 pupils with SEND including ten post-16 places.
The project will create a new-build two-storey block and entrance lobby, alongside a new Multi Use Games Area (MUGA), as well as renovating existing facilities and installing new pre-fabricated pupil calming pods.
That scheme is on top of two more recent awards of two other SEND schools for the business across Greater London. The Avenue, in the London Borough of Brent is a school for 104 children with autism. The school site is highly-constrained with architect Pozzoni’s design solution incorporating innovative sports facilities on third-level roof terraces to maximise the footprint.
Construction is already underway at the Meadow High School project in Hillingdon, with an extensive refurbishment and the creation of a new main block building catering for 255 pupils aged 11-19 years who have a ‘complex and moderate learning difficulties with Autism' designation.
Finally, in Dorset, Building Southern are currently constructing a new home for The Harbour School, which opened in temporary accommodation in September 2019. The new school building, which is due to open in January 2022 will see pupils with Social Emotional and Mental Health Needs and Autistic Spectrum Conditions housed within the same campus. Although central facilities and specialist teaching rooms will be shared, the two groups will have separate circulation and different zones for learning, effectively creating two school in one.
Claire Jackson, Education Director for Galliford Try, commented: “Building SEND schools is fast becoming a speciality for our business, and we are delighted to be working on each one of these projects. SEND schools often require innovative solutions to respond to end user requirements and as a team we have developed a real understanding of how to create holistic educational settings.”
Gavin Bridge, Managing Director of Galliford Try Building Southern, said: “Our business has built a fantastic order book in the education sector across the south, and particularly in SEND schools. We look forward to working with all the stakeholders involved in all of these much-needed projects to deliver the high-quality facilities that the students deserve.”