17 December 2015
£44 Million Off-site Scheme Starts on Site in East London
The £44 million Riverside Schools off-site project - the largest ever in the education sector - has started on site in Barking. The scheme for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham was awarded to the Portakabin Group and is using a Yorkon off-site solution to deliver an innovative three-school campus.
Now under construction, the 23,000sqm Riverside Schools campus will provide places for 2,645 children from 0-19 years on a six hectare site. The development will integrate provision for nursery, primary, special needs, secondary, and sixth form pupils, and will be operated by the multi-academy trust, Partnership Learning.
The Portakabin Group is the main contractor for this pioneering project. The contract was procured and awarded by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham via the Council's local education partnership, Thames Partnership for Learning. It is funded by the Education Funding Agency.
Commenting at the ground breaking, Councillor Evelyn Carpenter, Cabinet Member for Education and Schools at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham said, "I am very proud of the team for progressing the project so robustly. The off-site solution will help us to very quickly meet the urgent need for school places and deliver more outstanding schools in a good quality and modern educational environment. This will add to our ongoing work to help every child in Barking and Dagenham realise their highest aspirations."
Simon Ambler, Director of the Portakabin Group said, "This is our seventh project for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and follows on from the two earlier phases on the City Farm site near to the Riverside Schools campus, that are now in use. The scheme is one of the largest school projects now under construction in the UK and will create much needed additional school places for one of the fastest growing school-age populations in the country."
He added, "We are delighted to be part of a major development that will be at the heart of a vibrant new community with design-inspired public places and amenities."
Designed by Surface to Air and constructed using a Yorkon off-site solution for the curriculum areas, the scheme comprises an 1,800-place secondary school, a 630-place primary school, a special educational needs (SEN) school, and a 55-place nursery.
The use of off-site construction will significantly reduce the programme time. The structure is now in production in York at the same time as the major ground works are progressed on site in East London.
The project has been scheduled to complete the primary and SEN facilities at an earlier stage, in time for the start of the 2016/17 academic year to meet the urgent demand for places in the borough. The rest of the campus will be completed late Spring 2017.
The Riverside Schools scheme is being developed in the Barking Riverside regeneration area, which is close to Barking town centre and part of the Thames Gateway development. Early phases of substantial housebuilding have already been completed with further plans for 12,000 new homes increasing the need for education provision.
For further information about off-site building solutions from the Portakabin Group for primary and secondary education, call 0845 2000 123, email info@yorkon.co.uk or visit www.yorkon.info.
Editor's Notes
1. Project statistics and key features:
- The schools will be constructed from 387 steel-framed modules, craned in over two phases starting Spring 2016
- The largest module will be 18.75m long and weighing 20 tonnes
- There will be 100 classrooms across the three schools which wrap around the perimeter to maximise natural light
- The five-storey 10FE secondary free school will accommodate 1,500 pupils and 300 sixth form students
- The four-storey 3FE primary school will have 630 places
- The special educational needs school will have 160 pupil places and has been designed to promote inclusion across the campus
- The nursery will have places for 55 children, 16 of whom will be for special educational needs
- The Portakabin Group will use a steel-frame construction for the double height secondary school multi-use sports hall, dance hall, and administration/library building.
2. The benefits of Yorkon school building solutions from the Portakabin Group include:
- Programme times reduced for earlier occupation to help in the rapid expansion of schools to meet the rising demand for primary and secondary education
- Much less disruption to teaching during construction, which is critical when working on fully operational school sites
- The facility to fit almost any building footprint, including those designed for site-based construction - reducing design time and resources.
3. Yorkon and the Portakabin Group are registered trademarks. Portakabin is a registered trademark which must only be used to refer to modular buildings that are known to have been manufactured by the Portakabin Group. Please note, Portakabin is not a generic term.
4. The Portakabin Group is part of the Shepherd Group.
