星空传媒

Balfour Beatty has been announced as the preferred bidder for the 拢56m Birmingham Schools PFI by Birmingham City Council.

The firm's PFI education arm Transform Schools will provide 12 new and refurbished schools, including two secondary schools, nine primary schools and one early years centre within the City of Birmingham.

Balfour Beatty chief executive Mike Welton said: 鈥淲e are delighted to have been chosen to redevelop the City of Birmingham鈥檚 schools. This important success brings our PFI schools portfolio to five and is the third schools project won this year.鈥�

The project is expected to reach financial close by May 2005. The first schools are expected to be handed over in 2007, and all the schools are expected to be completed by 2008.

Construction will be carried out by a joint venture of Balfour Beatty subsidiaries Balfour Beatty and Construction and Balfour Kilpatrick. Facilities management work worth 拢40m will be undertaken by Haden 星空传媒 Management, another Balfour subsidiary.

The PFI win follows Balfour鈥檚 announcement last week that it been appointed one of two framework contractors by Manchester City Council in a 3-5 year partnering contract aimed at delivering part of its 拢160m 星空传媒 Schools for the Future programme.