Morgan Sindall Construction hands over new Millside Spencer Academy
Morgan Sindall Construction has handed over a new school in Nottinghamshire, creating vital school places for the local community.
Millside Spencer Academy is the latest project that has seen Nottinghamshire County Council work in collaboration with Arc Partnership, who designed and cost managed the project, and oversaw the construction through its delivery partner Morgan Sindall Construction.
Located on former farmland on Rempstone Road, the new school will be run by The Spencer Academies Trust and is part of the £14m investment in education in East Leake by Nottinghamshire County Council. Now that the keys to the school have been handed over, local residents can look forward to 315 primary and 26 nursery places in the heart of the recent David Wilson Homes housing development, The Skylarks.
During the design and delivery stages, Building Information Modelling (BIM) was utilised by the site team, who benefitted from coordinated and clash-detected 3D models, which also helped give greater programme certainty, contributing to an on-time handover.
The project boasts exceeded targets for local spend with subcontractors, with 54% local labour and local spend achieved within a 20-mile radius during delivery. A high level of engagement with SMEs was achieved and a huge 99% SME spend, with c. £50,000 spent with Social Enterprises. There was also a 100% fair payment rate of the supply chain, meaning that all subcontractors were paid within 15 days.
The contractor also had ambitious social value targets to deliver benefits to the local area. This also included university visits for undergraduate quantity surveyors from Nottingham Trent University and guest lectures provided by Morgan Sindall. Within the community, the team collected for local food banks and helped the school with the set-up of its forest school. Ukrainian refugees have also found employment on-site through social enterprise Radiant Cleaners, a real Living Wage employer that provides opportunities to disadvantaged adults.
Through all of this activity, the project earned a huge Social Value return of 46.5%, ensuring more than £4.5 million of the project spend was reinvested within the local area.
And, in line with Morgan Sindall’s net zero carbon goals, the use of the in-house digital carbon reduction tool CarboniCa supported Arc Partnership to decarbonise the project. One example was the use of a low carbon fly ash-based cement, manufactured using waste material, which helped the project save 117 tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of the carbon emissions of 43.3 homes heated annually.
Morgan Sindall was appointed by Arc Partnership to deliver Millside Spencer Academy. The school builds on an existing strong relationship between the contractor and Arc Partnership after the successful joint delivery of Bingham Primary School in August 2022 and Rosecliffe Spencer Academy in May 2021. The school is also the fourth school which Morgan Sindall has delivered for The Spencer Academies Trust, following Castleward Spencer Academy, Highfields Spencer Academy and Rosecliffe Spencer Academy.
Councillor Tracey Taylor, Cabinet Member for Children and Families, said:
What an incredible learning environment for pupils in and around the East Leake area. As a council, we have a duty of care to make sure there is a sufficient number of school places across Nottinghamshire so that every pupil can have access to good quality education, Millside Spencer Academy certainly has all the elements to achieve this. New schools like here in East Leake are very much an investment in our children’s future and from what I’ve heard from pupils and staff they are delighted with their new surroundings.”
School principal Sophia Thorne added:
We could not be happier with our new building, which has been designed with children at its heart. The specialist teaching spaces, on-site woodland and outdoor areas make it a stunning environment for both staff and children. I’d like to say a big thank you to Nottinghamshire County Council, Arc and Morgan Sindall, as well as the support and vision of Spencer Academies Trust, who have opened a school which will inspire our children for years to come.”
Sara Williams, Head of Pre Construction at Arc Partnership, said:
It has been an honour to work as part of such a supportive, collaborative team to design and deliver Millside Spencer Academy. To deliver this project on time and budget with colleagues from Nottinghamshire County Council and Morgan Sindall Construction has been a really positive experience and it’s a pleasure to know the children of East Leake are benefiting already from this truly inspirational learning environment.”
Richard Fielding, area director at Morgan Sindall added:
We are thrilled to hand over Millside Spencer Academy to the community, a project which has not only delivered vital pupil places for the local area, but also inspiring and modern learning environments which is integral to learning and development. Working with Arc Partnership gave us a brilliant product design to deliver, and we hope that through the build itself, and also through social value initiatives which have seen us give back to the local community through education, local spending and carbon reduction, we can all be proud of the outcomes we have achieved.”
For more information, please contact Farhana Khan at Influential, [email protected] / 07727 560606
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