Financial close on £208m BSF contract in Nottingham

18 June 2008

Carillion and its joint venture partners, the Local Education Partnership (LEP), have achieved financial close on the £208m Nottingham Building Schools for the Future programme.

The LEP will deliver eight secondary schools in the current wave of the BSF programme, primarily through new build with some refurbishment and remodelling. In addition, there is potential to provide three new-build Academies as part of this project, two of which are currently being developed by the LEP.

Carillion will provide a fully integrated solution for the new schools. This will include investing around £4m of equity in the project, carrying out the construction work, valued at £180m, and providing facilities management services for three of the new schools, worth approximately £28 million over the 25-year concession period.

Building work on the new schools will begin this month and will be completed in 2010. The LEP will deliver further new schools for Nottingham City Council in subsequent waves of the BSF programme and may deliver other community and regeneration projects, subject to receiving the necessary approvals.

Commenting, Carillion chief executive, John McDonough, said: “We are delighted to have achieved financial close on our second project under the BSF programme, which we expect to be a strong growth area for the Group. We have built an excellent partnership with Nottingham City Council and now look forward to helping them deliver their education vision of sustainable and state-of-the-art community focused schools.”

The Local Education Partnership comprises Nottingham City Council, Partnerships for Schools and Carillion. Nottingham City Council and Partnerships for Schools will each provide 10% of the equity, with the remaining 80% being provided by Carillion.

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the largest single schools capital investment programme for over 50 years. BSF will provide world-class teaching and learning environments for all pupils, teachers and communities in England.

Carillion’s education portfolio includes the South Tyneside and Gateshead BSF project, which reached financial close in December 2007 and Tameside BSF, which achieved preferred bidder status in April 2008, along with 39 other schools provided under Public Private Partnership projects