en.Wedoany.com Reported - Josh MacAlister, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education, revealed during a parliamentary Q&A session this week that the government plans to select the next batch of 250 schools for inclusion in the School Rebuilding Programme by the end of this year, with the list to be announced early next year. The selection will prioritise schools with the most urgent need for building improvements.

Launched five years ago, the School Rebuilding Programme aims to address structural risks posed by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) that has reached the end of its lifespan. Originally estimated to cost £10 billion, the latest projection for the ten-year plan has risen to £20 billion by 2035. According to MacAlister, more than half of the programme's existing 524 projects have entered the delivery phase. The deadline for responsible bodies to nominate schools or sixth-form colleges for participation in the rebuilding programme closed in April this year.

Contractor Bam recently completed the rebuilding of St Leonard's School in Durham, the school most severely affected by RAAC in the UK, at a cost of £71 million. Mark Gibson, Regional Director at Bam, told Construction News that around 30% of the company's business is focused on the education sector, with contracts currently held for over 30 schools. He praised the Department for Education's (DfE) five-year work plan as beneficial to the supply chain, noting that its approach differs significantly from conventional models.

According to data from industry intelligence specialist Glenigan, the underlying value of project starts in the education sector is expected to grow by 8% this year and by 20% by 2027, bucking the trend of contraction in other areas of the construction industry. In December last year, the DfE announced 42 selected companies in its £15.4 billion Construction Framework 2025 (CF25), with major contractors such as Kier, Morgan Sindall, Wates, Willmott Dixon, Galliford Try, Bowmer & Kirkland, and Tilbury Douglas securing high-value lots. CF25 will run until 2032, replacing the previous CF21 framework.

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