Interserve consortium wins £280m BSF programme

25 March 2009

The Interserve-led consortium Environments for Learning (E4L) has been named Selected Bidder by Sandwell Council for its major Building Schools for the Future development benefitting 20 schools.

Interserve will deliver construction and facilities management (FM) services worth more than £280 million. E4L will now become a partner in Sandwell’s Local Education Partnership (LEP), joining forces with the council and BSF Investments. The partnership will run for 10 years, giving the opportunity to transform education for generations of students, providing state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities and services for community use. Twenty schools in the borough are expected to benefit from the scheme.

The programme will operate in several waves and will include both new construction and refurbishment of existing facilities. Some projects will be financed using the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), where Interserve will construct the schools and provide FM services for 25 years thereafter, while others will be procured through a conventional design-and-build route. The total construction value is estimated at £240 million, of which £65 million will be in Wave 1. FM value in Wave 1 schools will be approximately £40 million.

It is anticipated Interserve will begin work this summer at the two pilot sites, Rowley Regis Learning Campus and Smethwick Learning Campus, with the buildings open and fully operational in 2011.

Interserve’s PFI consortium partner is Barclays Private Equity.

Interserve’s Chief Executive, Adrian Ringrose, commented, “Sandwell Council’s BSF programme demonstrates its commitment to providing excellent educational facilities for the borough. Interserve has a great deal of experience in planning, building and maintaining schools at all levels and we look forward to working with our LEP partners to create the kind of learning environments that will make a real difference to the communities of Sandwell.”