Commercial refurbishment contractor, JBH is advising schools, academies, colleges, universities and pre-schools in the South East to plan now for summer holiday refurbishment and maintenance work.
“School refurbishments are usually restricted to the six-week period during the summer holidays. Therefore, the planning process is crucial. Ideally, schools should be planning their refurbishment and property maintenance work before Easter, or during the first half of the summer term at the latest,” explains Jason Hubbard, Managing Director at JBH Refurbishments.
“Planning a refurbishment of any kinds needs suitable preparation, but schools need time to secure funding, achieve permissions and order materials, which can have long lead times – up to six weeks from order to delivery.
“It is our job to inform schools that they need to begin the planning process much earlier than perhaps they realise to ensure we meet their budgets and completion date.”
School Building Projects
Working in schools is a familiar scenario for the team at JBH Refurbishments. The commercial refurbishment contractor completed several school building projects in Kent and London in 2017. During the summer holidays alone, JBH finished three extensive school refurbishments simultaneously, with a combined contract value of £112,000.
Many of the UK’s mainstream schools were built during the post war period with cheap materials. Having undergone enormous wear and tear, many of these buildings are now providing a less an adequate learning environment for pupils. Consequently, building maintenance and improvements have been a major focus for the government’s Education Funding Agency (EFA) in recent years.
Since 2010 various funding options have been allocated to improve the learning environment for young people aged 5 to 18. Schools, academies and sixth form colleges across the country have made use of available funding to improve their properties and provide better facilities for students.
In 2016 just over 3,500 applications for Conditioning Improvement Funding (CIF) were received, resulting in 1,276 projects in 1,030 academies and sixth-form colleges between 2016 and 2017. The total funding secured for CIF was over £465 million. This increase for 2017-2018 financial year. Over 3,800 applications were received for CIF, of which 1,510 were approved and received funding of £466 million.
The Condition Improvement Funding is open to single academies, small multi-academies and sixth form colleges as a part of a bidding process. While multi-academy trusts (MATs) with a minimum of five academies and 3,000 plus pupils, receive a School Condition Allocation (SCA) per financial year. The SCA enables MATs to fulfil refurbishments, property repairs and maintenance work.
Further funding for school refurbishment work is available from the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund (HPCF), which is designed to offer pupils facilities that will enhance their physical and mental well-being. The funding enables schools across the UK to improve facilities, such as kitchens, canteens, changing rooms, washrooms, playgrounds and sports facilities.
The Healthy Pupils Capital Fund, quite fittingly, received £100 million in revenue from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which taxes businesses that produce, package or import soft drinks with added sugar.
With various funding options available to schools for building refurbishments and maintenance, it is not surprising that demand to complete major projects out of term time is increasing. Consequently, refurbishment contractor JBH advise for schools in the South East, to begin the planning process much early, is more pertinent than ever.
JBH has already begun planning refurbishments for several schools in Kent and London for the impending summer holidays. The project management team are currently offering advice and free site surveys to ensure schools don’t miss out on meeting their summer holiday refurbishments schedule.
For more information get in touch via our contact page or by telephone on 0333 207 0339
School Refurbishment Contractor
JBH is a commercial refurbishments contractor, based in Kent. We provide design and build services to the commercial, education, healthcare and retail sectors.
We offer all interior refurbishment and fit out services to schools, academies, sixth-form college and universities, including:
- Classroom refurbishments and fit outs
- Toilet refurbishments
- Repairs, maintenance and decoration
- Partitioning
- Flooring
- Hygienic surfaces
- Furniture
- Suspended ceilings
- …and more
Please take a look at our projects pages for information on some of the projects we have undertaken.
