The UK Department for Education has shortlisted three firms for the fourth batch of privately financed schools in the country under the PF2 model, the Yorkshire batch.

Shortlisted companies are the following:

• Laing O'Rourke,
• Bam Construction and
• Morgan Sindall

The contract winner will design, build, finance and maintain the schools. Construction is due to start from November and will continue to March 2015, with planned completions due for August 2016. This will be followed by a 25 year operational term. The project cost is estimated at £97 million. 

The PSBP Yorkshire private finance batch comprises 7 secondary schools.

• All Saints Catholic College, Huddersfield;
• Belle Vue Boys' School, Bradford;
• Carlton Bolling College, Bradford;
• Harrogate High School, Harrogate;
• Oakbank School, Keighley;
• Samuel Lister Academy, Bradford;
• Whitcliffe Mount Business and Enterprise College, Huddersfield.

The project is part of the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) which is a new schools programme. Its purpose is to rebuild/refurbish 261 schools. The PSBP contains a mixture of private finance and public capital projects.

Shortlisted bidders have been announced for two other batches:

• Batch 2 - Priority School Building Programme (North East) and
• Batch 3 - Priority School Building Programme (North West).

While the first batch of privately financed priority schools has been awarded to a joint venture between Interserve and Kajima.

The tender process for the  fifth Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) private finance batch  was issued a few days ago.