O’Rourke set for academy award

It looks like playtime for Laing O’Rourke, but detention for the other two bidders tussling for the opportunity to build the biggest secondary school in Europe.

Sources say that O’Rourke is poised to register success on the £34m Thomas Deacon Academy scheme in Peterborough.

The news means the waiting game is over for Mace and Taylor Woodrow, the only other two candidates still in the hunt for the project. A pitch from another hopeful, Sir Robert McAlpine, was expelled earlier on in the contest.

An insider said: "O’Rourke is expected to receive a letter of intent from the client at any tick of the clock."

Work on site was originally programmed to start last March, with completion due in April 2007. But the project is running about five months behind schedule. The new start date is now August, with the school ready to receive its first intake of pupils in September 2007.

A project source claimed: "These revised dates really don’t present a problem. There was always the fallback date of a September opening built into the programme."

The new academy will accommodate about 2,200 students aged between 11 and 18. The school will span 18,200m2 across three levels and be set in extensive sports fields, which will include a floodlit all-weather pitch, four rugby pitches, three cricket pitches and tennis courts. The academy will specialise in sports, technology and business studies.

The development, to replace three existing schools across the city, will comprise six colleges and aim to set up a university-style environment, where conventional lessons will be replaced by lectures, seminars and tutorials.

The project received government funding last September after two years of planning and consultation.

The Deacon’s School Trust – an educational trust dating back to the 18th century – and local company Perkins Engines, part of the US plant giant Caterpillar, have given a total of £2m.