School site accused of breaking pledges to take on local workers

A ROW over the use of out-of-town workers on a massive schools rebuilding programme in Hull has intensified after it was revealed local specialists have been overlooked in favour of companies from Cheshire, Leeds and York.

Balfour Beatty, which is constructing a "learning village" comprising a new academy, special school and primary school in West Hull, has employed Cheshire-based SLR Consulting to carry out archaeological surveys on the site of the former Pickering High School.

The Esteem consortium, which is delivering the other 19 projects under Hull's 460m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, has brought in Golder Associates, from Leeds, and York-based Onsite Archaeology, to carry out trenching, inspection and landscape work for the new Archbishop Sentamu Academy, in Preston Road, and the new Winifred Holtby secondary and Tweendykes special school, which are both being built on the same site in Midmere Avenue.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Staff at Humber Archaeology Partnership, founded in 1996, are understood to be dismayed at missing out on the work, and Balfour Beatty and Esteem have previously given assurances to use as much local labour as they can.

It has also emerged that Keepmoat Homes, partners of Hull-based housing regeneration agency Gateway, is using archaeologists from Wessex on a large-scale project in West Hull.

Earlier this month, the Yorkshire Post revealed that only about 40 per cent of the 90-strong workforce employed on the West Hull learning village were from the city, prompting calls for the city council to do more to protect local jobs.

Coun Steve Brady, leader of the opposition Labour Group at Hull Council, said the assurances looked like empty promises.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"It means nothing to them, they just ignore it," he said. "They are not practising what they preach.

"If they can't use the most specialist people on this type of thing, and we've got those people locally, then what chance is there for ordinary building workers?

"It's absolutely disgraceful. It's not the councillors who are running this council it's the officers, and a lot of them have got no allegiance to Hull."

A spokesman for Esteem said it did not have time to put work out for tender on its first academy project.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He said: "Work at Archbishop Sentamu Academy started immediately after the Hull BSF contract was awarded. With a tight deadline for delivery it was impossible to go out to tender for some aspects of the initial work, particularly ground preparation.

"The main contractor on this project used its existing supply chain until new procurement processes could be established. These are now in place."

He added: "Hull Esteem consortium is committed to using local labour.

"This was a bid commitment and we will deliver what we said we would on the 19 projects we are tasked with delivering over the next four years."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A spokeswoman for London-based Balfour Beatty said: "SLR Consulting are long-standing consultants working for Balfour Beatty.

"They were part of the bid team and have been involved from the bidding stage and carried on through, working on landscape design, archaeological studies and ground radar studies."

David Martin, project manager at Hull BSF, said: "It's about getting the right quality and the right skills for the right price.

"Esteem are our long-term partners and have pledged that 90 per cent of its workforce will be local over the programme.

"That exceeds even our expectations."

Related topics: