The builders are in while schools are out
SCHOOLS are getting a summer spruce-up as Education ploughs more than £1.4m. into projects ranging from toilets to boilers.
The six-week summer break gives the estates team a window of opportunity to carry out work in schools which would usually be impossible during term time.
In total, 15 school sites, along with the Priaulx Library – which Education has responsibility for – are receiving maintenance work and routine capital work and it is, building and maintenance manager Chris Dyer said, perhaps the largest amount of money yet spent on the annual projects.
'There is only one year I can remember when we have spent more than £1m. and that was when we had a longer period of weeks. The Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre is the largest spend, with £785,000 going on it. Our programme is undertaken in conjunction with head teachers and we try to be fair to everyone.
'They request things, it goes to a rating and we do what is most urgent.'
The Grammar School was having new boilers, said capital projects manager Steve Willcocks, simply because they had done their duty.
