BAM Construction has been announced as preferred bidder for a £9 million contract to build UTC Cambridge.

The contractor will deliver a three-storey building to hold 670 students aged 14 to 19.

The university technical college will specialise in biomedical and environmental sciences and technologies.

It will include five super labs on the top floor. These will hold 90 students each, with three capable of joining together to emulate large-scale research conditions.

Sustainability features will include a combined heat and power plant to provide low-carbon energy; photovoltaic cells; and gravel beds to control rainwater run-off.

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Pupils at Long Road Sixth Form College and Cambridge Regional College, both of which are sponsoring the UTC, will have the opportunity to learn from the construction project. Local suppliers will be used where possible.

The UTC will be built adjacent to the £175m Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), which was completed by BAM last year. The LMB was officially opened on 23 May by Her Majesty the Queen, construction value approximately £170m. The complex building houses some of the world's most eminent scientists and researchers. BAM Construction also built the Grafton Centre.

BAM regional design manager Malcolm Boyd said: "We are very excited to be back building science facilities in Cambridge. The LMB project helped us develop our designs for the science laboratories in the UTC, a key contribution to this important win for BAM.

"BAM is committed to ensuring our work creating UTC Cambridge will benefit pupils, teachers, the wider community and the environment."

Start on site is scheduled for September 2013, with the UTC due to open a year later at the start of the 2014/15 academic year.

(CD/JP)