Three shortlisted for £35m Knowledge Quarter cancer centre

Graham, Interserve, and Morgan Sindall have been shortlisted to build the £35m Rutherford Cancer Centre in Liverpool’s Paddington Village for Proton Partners International.

The three contractors have been lined up for the project in part of the city’s Knowledge Quarter, which will provide wide-ranging cancer services for patients, including proton beam therapy, chemotherapy, traditional radiotherapy and imaging.

It is expected the centre will be able to treat up to 500 patients a year and treatment will be available to medically-insured private patients, self-paying patients and patients referred by the NHS.

Plans were granted for the project in July this year, and the centre’s proton beam therapy treatment is expected to be available by 2019. The professional team includes Fairhurst as architect.

All three bidders for the Liverpool scheme have either worked at the Knowledge Quarter or have worked with Proton Partners on previous schemes.

Graham is already on site at a £30m cancer centre for Proton Partners in Reading, while Morgan Sindall is currently carrying out an infrastructure works package at the Knowledge Quarter, as well as delivering the Northern Centre of Excellence for the Royal College of Physicians.

Interserve is on site at Manchester’s first proton beam therapy centre for The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, with the project set to complete next year, and is also building another scheme for Proton Partners in Northumberland.

Proton is also building a genomics research centre at the Life Sciences Accelerator building in Liverpool which will be the first part of a health campus set to surround the new £335m Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

Proton Partners has been contacted for comment.