£500million joint deal to help revamp Blackburn, Darwen and Bolton schools

12:17pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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By Deborah Lewis »

BLACKBURN with Darwen and Bolton Councils are joining forces to mastermind a £500million revamp of local education.

Both authorities are in the process of planning their part in the Government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme, which aims to rebuild or remodel every secondary school across the UK.

The councils have teamed up in a bid to attract top architects and builders to implement the scheme.

As part of wave four of the BSF programme, Blackburn with Darwen Council is several stages ahead of Bolton, which hopes to be in wave 6a.

The authority has just submitted its outline business case to the Government, detailing the £150million plans to rebuild or remodel nine schools in the borough, starting in 2010.

This document was produced following a six month consultation period last year which was fraught with controversy.

Under the scheme, Beardwood Humanities College in Preston New Road will close, and three new "superschools" would be built by 2012 on the sites of Pleckgate and Witton Park High Schools, and a new East Blackburn Community to replace Blakewater College. The rest of the borough's secondary schools will be extensively refurbished.

In Bolton, 17 schools are to be developed, at a total of £370million.

Blackburn with Darwen education chiefs have agreed to work with Bolton Council to form a Local Education Partnership with a selected private sector developer and ICT provider, which will be responsible for rebuilding or redeveloping all 26 schools across both boroughs.

Project teams, and later schools, will work together to share expertise, resources, ideas and learning.

Once funding is secured, both councils will begin the procurement process to find the private sector design and construction partners who can successfully turn their plans into reality.

Councillors Colin Rigby, Conservative leader, David Foster, Liberal Democrat leader, Tony Melia, For Darwen leader and Kate Hollern Labour leader said in a joint staement: "Our new partnership means we will work together on that process to ensure we secure the highest quality private sector partners to maximise the impact of our plans in each borough."

The agreement was signed at Turton Tower on April 23 by the councils' chief executives.