Shepherd wins £8m special needs school contract

Shepherd Construction has won an £8m design and build contract to construct a school for children with special educational needs at Parr, St Helens.

The contract, awarded by St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council, will see a new school measuring approximately 5036m2 and will include nursery facilities and 22 individual purpose built classrooms designed to cater for the needs of a whole range of disabilities and learning difficulties.

Specialist rooms will be built to provide facilities for the teaching staff, IT, food technology, design technology and hygiene areas with ancillary storage, while a swimming pool is also planned for the new development that will be made available for the use of the wider community outside of school hours.

The project will form part of the Parr Single Regeneration Budget programme which is a partnership with the community, the public sector and the private sector and is committed to the social, economic and physical regeneration of the area. 

Work is due to begin on site in spring 2003 and is expected to take two years to complete.