A £45 BILLION PROJECT to rebuild all 3,500 secondary schools before 2020 will come under attack from a powerful cross-party group of MPs for failing to set an example on green construction methods.

A report from the education and skills select committee, headed by Labour MP Barry Sheerman, will slam the programme for missing a big opportunity to promote sustainable building methods.

Liberal Democrat MP Paul Holmes, a committee member, said it was “pretty stupid” that ministers had failed to put environmental sustainability at the heart of the biggest public-sector building project since the 1960s.

About £150m has been set aside to improve environmental standards on the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme, but MPs believe this is a drop in the ocean in the context of the £45 billion BSF programme.

The Sustainable Development Commission told the MPs that it would add 15% to 20% to the cost of building schools to make them carbon neutral and more energy efficient. Schools account for about 15% of the public sector’s carbon footprint in the UK.

One committee source said: “There is no doubt the green stuff has just been tacked on as an afterthought in this programme – which is amazing given the government preaching about its green agenda.”

In a recent meeting with the Sustainable Development Commission, competing contractors said they were keen to build schools with higher green standards, but feared the costs could mean they would lose out to rivals in the bidding process.

Chris Whitehead, director of new business at Balfour Beatty Capital, the construction company working on several BSF schools contracts, told The Sunday Times: “We could deliver more but we are an organisation with a customer focus and we are about delivering what the client is asking for. If we gave them more environmental features when they would sooner have twice the number of computers we wouldn’t last long in the job.”

Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships for Schools, the organisation in charge of delivering the BSF programme, said that it was important to get the balance right between high environmental standards and delivering value for money.

The select committee report is expected to be released in the next three weeks.

Times Recommends

• C&G axed - 1,660 jobs to be lost
• UK house prices rise 1.1% as buyers return
• Mixed reaction to US banks repaying bailouts