Amec and Osborne aim for £27.7m school of medicine project shortlist

by Brian Warner

Amec and Geoffrey Osborne are among the firms trying to make the shortlist for one of the few major hospital deals not to go down the PFI route.

The £27.7m project is to build a new school of medicine and dentistry at the Queen Mary, University of London's campus in east London.

Osborne is currently working on another Queen Mary project on the same campus under a partnering arrangement.

But it is understood that Amec and architect Alsop are already engaged on detailed design work for the scheme, which will be publicly funded.

William Hunt, assistant project manager with Broadmast, which is handling the scheme for Queen Mary, said: "We intend to invite between six and eight firms to tender in September. This is a complex job and we want to cast the net wide."

A first-stage winner will be announced at the end of November, with work on site starting in April 2002 for completion two years later. The scheme first surfaced seven years ago as a publicly funded deal, which the then Tory government demanded should be tested against PFI.

Comparisons showed that the pubic purse would in fact give better value, but the scheme was then put on hold by the incoming Labour government while it carried out its health review.