THE manufacturing of school buildings in York for sites across the country is gathering pace as Portakabin ties down a £5.6 million contract for the first phase of a seven-school scheme.

The Huntington-based Portakabin Group has announced it has been awarded the contract from the Education Funding Agency (EFA) for the construction of the first school in the Surrey and Kent batch of the Priority School Building Programme.

The contract follows the Portakabin Group’s appointment as preferred bidder for seven school schemes, which will be worth in the region of £28 million and delivered using the firm's off-site construction process called Yorkon.

The first project is a new 480-place school for Pyrford Primary School in Woking which will be constructed by Portakabin and handed over in time for the start of the 2016/17 academic year.

The building for Pyrford Primary School will provide 16 classrooms, with modules weighing up to 20 tonnes each being manufactured in York before being shipped to the rural site.

Simon Ambler, director of the Portakabin Group, which employs 1,600 people in the UK and Europe, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Holland, said: "We are delighted to be able to demonstrate our ability to deliver high quality, affordable school buildings to faster programmes to the benefit of children’s education.

"The opportunity for off-site construction to help transform the learning environment for thousands of pupils and their teachers under the Priority School Building Programme is immense."

As main contractor, the Portakabin Group will be responsible for all elements of this three-phase project including the off-site construction and fitting out of the main school building, construction of a multi-purpose hall, asbestos removal, demolition works, landscaping, and car parking.

Commenting on the project, Kathryn Krynicki, headteacher at Pyrford Primary School, said: “We are looking forward to seeing our new building being manufactured in the factory in York soon and we can’t wait to have the facilities up and running for the start of the new academic year. The Portakabin Group has been brilliant and we have a strong relationship with the site team."

The deal is the latest in a line of contract wins in the education sector for Portakabin, which last month secured a £14 million design and build contract for the Global Academy university technical college in the London Borough of Hillingdon.

The York company was also awarded the UK’s largest ever off-site contract in the education sector in October when it won a £44m deal to build Riverside Schools, a 23,000sq metre project made up of three school campuses in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.