Morgan completes Walton school

Liverpool-based construction, infrastructure and design business Morgan Sindall has completed the final phase of Alsop Technology College in Walton, Liverpool.

The company's construction business Morgan Ashurst was appointed in February 2009 to build a 59,201 sq ft teaching and activity block to include a dance studio, areas for dining and socialising, classrooms with retractable walls and bright, open atrium areas.

Morgan Ashurst also refurbished an existing Grade 2 listed building, built in 1926, to improve teaching facilities for maths and science subjects, as well as providing landscaped areas and removal of redundant mobile classrooms.

The school was designed by architects 2020 Liverpool, a joint venture partnership with Liverpool City Council, and work was completed in three phases over the last eight months.

The £18m project was funded by the Building Schools for the Future programme, a scheme introduced by the Labour Government that has since been scrapped.

The council said Alsop, which has 1,800 pupils, was the first Liverpool school to benefit from the BSF programme.

Cllr Jane Corbett, cabinet member for education at Liverpool City Council, said: "The project reflects our vision for education in Liverpool and what we had wanted to achieve in the city's remaining secondary schools through wave 6 of Building Schools for the Future.

"It is about creating top quality facilities which accommodate new ways of learning and make sure no child is left behind.

"I'm delighted for everyone at Alsop, and I'm looking forward to seeing the school go from strength to strength in the future."

Alsop High opened in 1926 and was extended in the 1950s and 1960s. When Queen Mary school in Fazakerley closed in 2002 it took in more pupils and mobile classrooms had to be built in the playground to accommodate them.

The council is working on alternative plans to improve schools which were in wave 6 of BSF, following the cancellation of the £350m scheme by the government last year.