Interserve has been named preferred bidder for the St Helens Building School for the Future Programme.
The construction and support services firm leads the Environments for Learning (E4L) consortium, and will undertake a major schools development programme for St Helens Council worth provisionally £150m.
Interserve will construct two schools, with a capital cost of £47m, in the first phase: Rainford High Technology College and De La Salle School.
Rainford will be financed using the private finance initiative (PFI) and Interserve will provide facilities management services worth £8m to the school over a 25-year period once construction is complete.
Six further schools, worth an aggregate of over £100m in construction costs, have been identified for subsequent development. Two of these will be procured through PFI.
E4L and St Helens Council will, together with BSF Investments, become partners in St Helens's Local Education Partnership (LEP).
Interserve anticipates reaching financial close on the contract in the autumn this year. Construction will begin immediately afterwards, leading to the first schools being ready to accept pupils for the start of the academic year in September 2012.
Interserve's Chief Executive, Adrian Ringrose, said: “Interserve is one of the country's most experienced and successful companies in creating schools through BSF. This is our third such development programme, alongside Sandwell in the West Midlands and our award-winning partnership at Leeds.”
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