Ayrshire College has appointed the C3 consortium as the preferred bidder for its new £50 million campus in Kilmarnock. C3 is composed of Hochtief PPP Solutions, Hochtief FM and McLaughlin and Harvey.

The project involves the development of a new college campus in the Kilmarnock town centre on what was previously a Johnny Walker whiskey bottling plant and will provide facilities for over 5,000 students. Work on the campus is expect to commence in early 2014 and construction is forecast to be complete by the end of 2015.

• Amber Graham Education Partnership (comprising Amber Infrastructure Group Holdings Ltd and Graham Construction),
• Balfour Beatty (comprising Balfour Beatty Capital Ltd, Balfour Beatty Construction Scottish and Southern Ltd, and Balfour Beatty Engineering Services Ltd) and

This is the single largest public sector investment the town has ever seen. Construction work will start early in 2014 and is scheduled to be opened in early 2016.

An university official said:

"This decision means we can move ahead with our plans to create a world-class college campus in the town. It is a major boost for Kilmarnock and for the whole of Ayrshire. Students will have access to a fantastic learning environment, and the local community and businesses across Ayrshire will be able to take advantage of its state of the art facilities.

"The tender process was very competitive and we are confident that C3 will help us achieve our vision of raising aspirations, inspiring achievement and increasing opportunities for the people of Ayrshire. It's wonderful to be able to bring such a significant building project to the centre of Kilmarnock which will transform the physical and learning landscape of the town, as well as creating skilled jobs in the construction industry."

Lynne-Marie Thom from the Scottish Futures Trust, who has been supporting the college through the procurement process, said

"I'm delighted that this milestone has been reached on the third college project in the Non-Profit Distributing programme. We look forward to working closely with the college and its preferred bidder to achieve a great value-for-money deal, aiming for construction to start early next year. This is great news for the Kilmarnock community and will be an enormous boost to local small and medium businesses working within the building sector and related supply chains."

The 25-year DBFM contract is being procured under Scotland's non-profit distributing model which is characterised by capped private sector returns and the absence of dividend bearing equity.

Laurence Howells, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Funding Council said:

"Today's announcement is great news. This is an enormously exciting project for Ayrshire College, Kilmarnock and the region and is the latest development in the Funding Council's wider programme of supporting modern, well-designed and inspiring campuses for learners across Scotland."