The Interserve-led consortium Environments for Learning (E4L) has been named preferred bidder to undertake a major schools development programme for St Helens Council worth provisionally £150 million.

The programme will operate under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative. Interserve will construct two schools, with a capital cost of £47 million, 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 £8 million to the school over a 25-year period once complete.

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Six further schools, worth an aggregate of over £100 million 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). We anticipate 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.

(CD/GK)