BAM appointed as preferred bidder for BSF programme including Academy

Under a decision delegated to top council officers, BAM PPP was appointed as the preferred bidder for the Council's Building Schools for the Future programme. You can see the report here.

The Council's new (Labour) Executive will take a final decision on 21st July confirming this. The process involves designs on two detailed schemes - for the UCL Academy/Swiss Cottage Special School and for South Camden Community School, but the idea is that the selected partner, in what is effectively a joint venture PPP, will be involved with the BSF programme across all Camden's secondary schools.

The detailed planning application for the UCL Academy will go in on or around 26th May. As ward councillors we will look at this carefully as undoubtedly will many local people. We will make sure that those of the three of us not on the new Development Control Committee will firmly represent residents views and concerns on the planning application.

BAM PPP (www.bamppp.com) is a major European construction company (Dutch HQ) with a lot of experience of public-private-partnership development projects, including 12 schools projects. We've heard good things about BAM and we had heard some concerns about the other bidder, Bouygues, so we're comfortable about this selection. The new school (remember the previous Labour administration didn't want a new secondary) will provide much needed new secondary places in the north-west of Camden, and many parents are already excited about the school as the September 2007 opening date looms closer. Clearly however the planning process now rightly moves centre stage.