Dozens of primary and secondary schools projects put on hold

New research has revealed that 35 primary and secondary school projects are on hold awaiting funding.

The current funding gap for these schemes is £122.5m according to data from Building’s sister company Barbour ABI.

Projects include funding for £1m projects for Cliffey House School, St Barnabas CE Primary School and Parkgate House School.

The research shows the full extent of the funding shortfall for schools, colleges and universities across the country.

More than 80 college projects are listed as ‘on hold’ due to problems acquiring funding, according to the Barbour ABI Evolution database of construction projects.

The largest college project on hold is a £300 million college for the Scottish Further Education Council. The smallest is a £1m project for Nazarene Theological College.

Added up the total funding gap for colleges is more than £2.6bn.

However there are 13 colleges that have received the go-ahead for funding. The problem now is that they're asking for £300m more than what is available.

A recent article in Building Magazine stated that the £5bn college building scheme was halted in March after it was found that the body had overshot its budget by more than 150%.

In yesterday’s session of the Education Now virtual event, participants discussed the status of education funding in the UK.

Matt Pearson, an ICT consultant said: “The LSC made a terrible, horrible mess of the whole programme. I was tracking the total spend on an Excel spreadsheet and realised way before it was official, that the programme was overspending and overcommitting.”

One architect said: “I think that is why some of the teachers we have spoken to are reluctant to do any work as they are all waiting to see what is happening with funding… no-one seems to know”

From the catering sector, a participant said: “The economic climate is obviously playing havoc with construction companies and to be honest I wonder whether some of the funding is being withheld from the construction firms as we are finding it very difficult to get paid for these projects which as an SME is a huge problem.”

Universities are less affected by the funding crisis. Just nine projects are currently “on hold” according to the database.