A County Durham Catholic Academy will look forward to returning to brand new and remodeled facilities in September after floods had ruined extensive areas of the school earlier this year.
Pupils and staff at St Bede’s Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Lanchester will return to find completely refurbished ground floor areas throughout all buildings which were severely damaged during storms in late May.
The renovations have been project managed by Newcastle-based chartered surveyors, Harrow Consulting LLP. As well as designing, planning and overseeing the renovation work to the ground floor, they have also been able to provide the school with a much improved Food Technology Room; renovated to a high quality specification.
The renovation project, believed to be worth more than £400,000, is planned for completion on September 2nd, ahead of the start of the new summer term. A new state-of-the-art 3G all-weather sports pitch, also part of the renovation work, is due for completion later on this year.
St Bede’s Catholic School’s Headteacher, Neville Harrison, said: “It was a crushing blow for everyone to have to close parts of the school following the flooding caused by the freak weather in May.
“But we’re sure staff and pupils alike will be thrilled with the renovations and new additions. The professional manner in which this project has been managed has meant that there has been no impact upon our excellent examination results this year.”
Ian Merrington, Director of Academy Services added: “We’re hugely grateful to the team at Harrow, whose assistance has proved crucial over the summer months. The team worked with us in partnership, to minimise disruption and in austere times, provided fantastic value for money; in terms of service delivery and ensuring quality of workmanship the team has been second to none. Graeme Harker has delivered the project within very tight timescales and I am very grateful for his highly effective support and advice”.
Partner at Harrow LLP, Graeme Harker, said: “It has been a very tight deadline to work to. Work started the moment the pupils left for the summer and as promised we will have everything finished and ready for the first day of term in September.
“It’s a project we’re very proud of, as we think we’ve been able to vastly improve facilities for everyone connected with the Academy and, crucially, try to mitigate against any further flood damage in the future.”
The floods, which happened in late May, forced the school to close large sections of its facilities. The water damage completely ruined its old red ash sports pitches.
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