Dalkeith Schools Community Campus
The background
Dalkeith High School and St David’s Roman Catholic High School, located in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland were unable to meet the modern educational needs of pupils, as the school buildings had out-of-date facilities and were in a poor condition.
Midlothain Council decided to relocate the schools to a green-field site on the edge of town, while amalgamating the structures with the local Special Education Needs (SEN) school, making Dalkeith Schools Community Campus the first joint secondary school campus in Scotland. The campus accommodates four schools, including Dalkeith High School, St David’s Primary School, King’s Park Primary School, and Woodburn Primary School. The campus also includes a community center, a library, and sports facilities.
In 2002 Midlothian Council awarded Invesis the PPP contract to successfully deliver the complex project through a design, build, finance, maintain and operate mechanism. Through partnering with Invesis, Midlothian Council received a concession with state-of-the-art facilities, that provides an opportunity for pupils to take joint classes on subjects that were previously not available due to facility constraints.
Client
Midlothian Council
Capital Value
€52m
Sponsor/Investor
Invesis
Consortium
Dalkeith SPV Ltd
Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)
BAM Construction
Operations and Maintenance (O&M)
BAM FM
Business value
The project incorporated shared facilities between denominational and non-denominational schools. This approach was ahead of its time however, there were concerns about whether the shared facilities would be received well by the end users and the community.
Invesis worked collaboratively with the client and our partners to optimise the design to deliver inter-connected buildings which allows a high degree of interaction and sharing of facilities, while enabling independence for each school to be maintained when required.
By partnering with Invesis, the schools continue to be maintained to an optimum condition of appearance and performance throughout the operational period, which will have a direct impact on the efficient delivery of education.
Key features
By using the PPP approach and partnering with Invesis, the project…
- was handed over to the client on time and on budget
- was installed with energy saving technology in 2017 which led to savings of 33.7% on the cost of heating hot water at the site
- was received in immaculate condition, providing approximately 2,300 pupils with high quality learning environments
