Full Independent Certifier services to nine schools in the London Borough of Lewisham.

Currently nine schools are being procured as part of the BSF program, 7 of which are procured via the PFI model, with two schools being procured using the BSF design and build model.

With the exception of Prendergast Hilly College, Addey and Stanhope and Prendergast Vale School which are to be remodelled, all schools will be new build.

Generally, schools were built on the site of the existing school, with the old school being demolished as part of the works. Each site came with it’s own constraints and challenges, as is common when building in urban areas; many were on small, congested sites, next to residential areas and metropolitan open parkland.

Sample Schools
The initial 2 schools at Sedgehill and Catford were treated as sample schools, and Appleyards participated fully in ‘lessons learnt’ exercises to ensure the subsequent schools benefited fully from improved processes and designs.

Scope of Works
Full independent ceritifer services were carried out to all nine schools; this included monthly site visits, inspection of the operation of the contracts and quality control procedures, monthly monitoring and reporting, and attendance to site meetings.

Focused, Collaborative Approach
Towards completion, Appleyards facilitated an Independent Certifier workshop with all interested parties to introduce the concept of Independent Certifier, our scope and our working methods. This helped to ensure all parties were ‘up to speed’ with the handover procedures, and gave an opportunity to respond to any concerns or issues.

We then undertook Countdown Meetings with key participants at increasing frequencies, initially 6 months from completion, through to weekly in the month prior to completion. By working more closely with the project teams, and with the benefit of our experience on other PFI commissions, we were able to identify potential problems and get these addressed before they became non-certification issues and impacted on the programme.