8:20am Thursday 15th July 2010
By Chris Koenig
BUILDING companies in Oxfordshire are assessing their future workload in the light of the Government’s decision to axe the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme.
Some 700 schools have halted their rebuilding plans, including Iffley Mead, Larkmead and Cheney in Oxford, as well as Banbury School.
However, Michael Puttick, managing director of Kidlington company Kingerlee, which employs 125 people, said the move could benefit smaller builders. He said: “From our point of view the BSF programme has always been frustrating anyway.
“The trouble was that it was only open to large national contractors and we were not big enough to participate — which we saw as unfair and bad for the local economy and local jobs.”
He added: “Now we hope that local authorities will have more freedom to choose contractors, as traditionally they always used to have — with more remodelling of existing buildings rather than wholesale reconstruction.”
Kingerlee, which employed 145 people until imposing redundancies in January 2009, is currently building the Kendrew Quad at St John’s College, Oxford, and is bidding for a new complex at Pembroke. Both contracts are reputedly worth tens of millions.
Mark Wittet, of Axtell Perry Simm, which employs about 250 people in Osney Mead, said this year they had not taken on any apprentices thanks to the downturn.
Mark Beard, of Oxford and Swindon builders Beard and Co, which employs 160 people, said: “We have seen one school project in Banbury put on hold until September.
“But generally I think it is far better, and more environmentally friendly, for the government to look at improving existing buildings than to go in for wholesale rebuilds.”
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