Tideway School reopens following rebuild

3rd April 2009

Completion was reached last month on the reconstruction of the fire-damaged Tideway secondary school in Newhaven, East Sussex, allowing the school to reopen. The development was project managed by the Brighton office of national consultancy Robinson Low Francis and built by regional contractor Kier Longley.

Following an arson attack in 2005, the project began on-site in 2007, to a value of almost £11m. Robinson Low Francis was appointed during the pre-construction stage to manage the development which required a major rebuild of the school with adjoining parts of the existing school needing refurbishment. At the start of the build a temporary mobile village was installed to provide significant decanting space for the pupils, allowing teaching to continue with minimal disruption during the construction.

The rebuild gave East Sussex County Council the opportunity to provide an exciting and innovative building for secondary education, in a modern environment.

Peter Scragg, Partner at Robinson Low Francis, said: “We are working on a number of schools in the local area, but this one was unique in its reason and need for redevelopment. It is fantastic to see the project finished, and the pupils able to get back into a first-class learning environment.”

ENDS

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Notes to Editors:

About Robinson Low Francis

Robinson Low Francis (RLF) is a UK firm of construction and property consultants, with over 100 years of experience in the industry. The company provides services to public and private sector clients and is currently involved in projects with a total value well in excess of £1billion.

RLF has 170 staff spread across seven offices around the UK - Birmingham, Brighton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester and Stevenage – and one in Malta. It was voted one of the UK’s top professional services firms in the “MPF100 Best Professional Firms to Work For” survey and was included in Building magazine’s Good Employer Guide 2008.

Key areas of work are quantity surveying, project management, engineering services, building surveying, management consulting, health and safety services and more recently specialist sustainability advice to meet the major environmental changes in the industry.

RLF works across the commercial, education, government & defence, healthcare, industrial, office, residential, retail and sport & leisure sectors, to provide clients with innovative solutions to their construction and property needs. Clients include Royal Mail, John Lewis, Grosvenor, Pfizer and Barclays. For more information visit www.rlf.co.uk

Kier Longley operates throughout central Sussex, Surrey and the western region of Kent and is part of the Kier Group

Kier Longley's philosophy is to deliver a good quality construction service through a professional and friendly management team. This team has many years' experience in the industry, is professionally qualified and has a proven record of building to high standards.

Kier Longley includes a general works facility, which undertakes projects within the £10,000 to £1m price range; plus a main contracts team which constructs schemes between £1m and £45m.
Visit www.kier.co.uk/longley for more details.