The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is the procurement lead for local authorities forming the East London Solutions Group. These councils have decided to shun the Education Funding Agency’s framework in favour of setting up their own collective panel of building contractors.

In the region, Essex County Council has also separately just announced its favoured building contractors for public projects, many expected to be schools over the next four years.

The latest Education and Built Environment Framework will be carved up into three value lots of: £500,000-£3.5m; £3.5m-£10m; and projects over £10m, with interested firms restricted to bidding two lots.

Local authorities signed up to the pretendered framework include the London Boroughs of Havering, Redbridge, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham, Enfield, Hackney.

It will also be open to a host of academies, free schools, universities and colleges from within all of these council areas.

Partner builders on the previous smaller framework include Lakehouse, Bouygues UK, Barnes Construction, McLaren and Willmott Dixon.

Firms can contact Stephen Howells for more information or registered their interest on the website.