Lewisham BSF names bid shortlist for £120m scheme

Four bidders are at the front of the class for Lewisham’s £120m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

The bidders are Bouygues, Kajima, Learning 21 (Vosper Thornycroft/Costain) and MPB Education (Mouchel Parkman/Babcock).

However, the four favourites face another test before the council whittles the shortlist down to three in September.

The four bidders are now being taken through the next stage of selection, preparation of a preliminary invitation to negotiate (ITN) and interviews. Three shortlisted bidders will then submit a full ITN following their selection in September 2005.
Meanwhile, Newham Council is planning to delay its BSF programme.

Zoe Power, Newham’s BSF project director, told CJ: “We don’t want to rush into this.
We want to get it right and spend more time discussing what we need to do with all the stakeholders.

“We need to consider the logistics of delivering the programme in such a tight urban borough. The likely outcome is a multi-wave project, with half the schools delivered in wave two and the rest delivered over waves four and six.”