The £65m Flintshire primary and secondary school campus project will be built on the site of existing Argoed High School in Mynydd Isa.

Enabling works are just getting underway for the scheme, which is also designed to be BREEAM excellent and net zero carbon in operation.

MIM borrows heavily from the Non Profit Distribution public private finance model pioneered in Scotland. Crucially it has been judged as off-balance sheet.

Unlike historic PFI deals, the Welsh model allows the public sector to share in any profits with a 20% equity stake, excludes the provision of services such as cleaning and catering from the contract, and ensures transparency about costs and performance.

The Welsh Education Partnership Company – WEPCo – awarded the construction job to Robertson’s North West Construction arm, while Robertson Facilities Management will deliver the hard FM services upon completion of the build in early November 2024.

Demolition of the old high school and formation of the new games’ pitches will be completed by September 2025.

The two-storey Campus will have an internal floor space of 10, 500 sq m

Outdoor facilities are intended to meet the needs of nursery, primary and high school pupils, which will have 43,600 and 700 places respectively.

Elliot Robertson, chief executive officer at Robertson Group, said: “Our Construction North West and Facilities Management teams have been working tirelessly with WEPCo to reach financial close and activity on the site will begin in earnest in the coming weeks.

“Robertson is proud to be the contractor of choice for both the build and on-going FM hard services provision.

“Throughout the build, we will also be working closely with the local community to deliver added social value which will benefit Flintshire and its residents during the build and post completion.

“As a business we have been working hard to reduce our environmental impacts across all of our operations and we will be doing all that we can to reduce and limit embodied cardon during construction.”

Christian Stanbury, Chief Executive Officer, WEPCo, said: “This is the first WEPCo project to reach financial close and to commence on site.

“This project will set a benchmark for the future delivery of education facilities in Wales and is set to bring more than just academic attainment to Flintshire.”