Kier London has begun demolishing Frances Combe Academy, Watford, the first of the 50-year-old school structures, to make way for a major improvement and modernisation programme that will see a new academy rising from the footprint of the old campus.

The demolition programme was officially launched by a member of the academy teaching staff, head of learning for performing arts and media Lorraine Wright, who won the chance to knock down the old main hall in a charity auction. As well as sitting at the controls of an excavator and being shown how to operate its mechanical 'claw', Lorraine also took a swing inside the old school hall with a club hammer and a pick-axe.


Kitted out in safety gear, Lorraine took a ten-pound hammer to the front of the stage and wielded a pick-axe to break up its flooring. She is now looking forward to seeing a new multi-purpose hall take shape, providing bigger and more flexible accommodation to stage more ambitious school productions.

Kier London, working with architect ACP and academy sponsor West Hertfordshire College, has erected a suite of temporary accommodation units for the academy’s 1,300 pupils, who will continue to be taught on site throughout the £22m design & build project, due for hand over at the end of 2012.

The work involves demolishing around 80 per cent of the original school in Horseshoe Lane, Garston, and rebuilding it on the existing footprint. The Kier team has drawn up a three-phase programme of demolition and rebuilding operations, to enable the academy to remain open throughout the two-and-a-half year programme.

Kier has also been confirmed as preferred bidder to rebuild and refurbish Bushey Academy, which Hertfordshire County Council has designated as a batched scheme together with Francis Combe. The £28m design and construction scheme at Bushey is expected to begin at the turn of the year.

(CD/GK)