Schools and colleges must comply with a vast range of legislative requirements to ensure the safety of their students, visitors and those who work in their buildings and grounds. State-of-the art facilities are needed to attract the parents of prospective students and ensure future success.
Our building surveyors and project managers offer educational organisations a professional overview to help maintain high quality building portfolios as well as understand wider a field what is important both short and longer term. Whether primary, secondary, further, or higher education, our project managers have led teams to deliver a range of services to the education sector – from new build, remodelling, and refurbishment.
Our specialists understand the importance of minimising disruption to students and staff during works, which requires high levels of management and collaboration from all members of the team. Where possible, works are planned to take place outside of the typical school day to mitigate the impact on delivering the curriculum. Where not possible, works are undertaken during holidays periods.
We understand the challenges within the education sector and are able to assist in overcoming problems with communication and organisation. Our specialists are also used to working with departments across large areas and various geographical locations.
The biggest problem facing schools is a lack of space. Do they give up expensive land, often used for sports and recreational purposes, to build new classrooms? Or do they reuse their current estate to maximise space? Our professionals help schools to unlock and understand underutilised areas or navigate the planning process to build upwards instead of outwards.
Understanding the flow and focus of schools is essential. Bottlenecks and general wear and tear can be caused because of a lack of consideration. Being mindful of activity and communal spaces for staff and students to interact and support each other is key. If you have questions on building layouts, out professionals can advise.
Understanding that education needs change and so do property the requirements is essential. Will energy requirements support IT infrastructure in ten years’ time? What about acoustics and maintenance? Could a new room exist next to an art and drama department that has had to move? Our professionals can advise on these questions.
How do you renew and invigorate old spaces? Can you remove walls that could make way for bigger or brighter spaces? What about bringing listed buildings in line with new EPC standards? How can schools be set-up to accommodate external revenue generation? Our professionals can advise on all these questions.
With traditional build taking upwards of six to twelve months and impacting on the day-to-day running of a school, our professionals can aid in exploring faster modular building methods as well as concluding what is best for each individual client.
According to RIBA's analysis of government figures published in 2015, only 5% of 60,000 buildings in 18,000 schools surveyed in England were in top condition, performing as intended and operating efficiently. Our professionals work with all parties involved to make sure our client’s schools fit within the 5%.
Our building consultancy professionals are located in Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds and London. Together our teams offer educational property advice across England and Wales.
The building consultancy services we provide to the education sector include:
We have extensive experience of advising on all types of buildings, including complex old and listed properties. Our project managers and surveyors undertake condition surveys, historic building consent and specify repair works to give a realistic assessment of the likely cost of all works. Working alongside our architects and project managers who manage refurbishment and new build work for schools and colleges, we can also provide a budget for full refurbishment.
We recognise that property directors and bursars prefer one point of contact. Therefore, for all our education services, our lead surveyors ensure that they see all the buildings even when maintenance inspections have already been carried out by colleagues, to provide a consistent assessment of priorities. Our surveyors can then deliver authoritative overview of the condition of the estate.
When professionals in other divisions of our firm are involved – such as Red Book valuers, planning and development advisors or landlord and tenant surveyors – their advice is also channelled through the same contact. We quantify costs at the outset, appreciating that fixed priced quotations are important for budgeting purposes.
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