Morgan Sindall flies high with RAF base school development

To help tackle the nation’s chronic housing shortage, plans have been drawn up to build 12 new towns across the UK, with the Government determined to start work on at least three during this Parliament.

Similar to Clement Attlee’s post-war housing schemes, which saw the birth of Crawley, Basildon and Harlow, the new towns would each have up to 10,000 homes with an ambition for that to include a minimum of 40% affordable housing.

In a similar move, a new community with more than 6,000 homes is taking off from the site of RAF Alconbury in Cambridgeshire.

Known as Alconbury Weald, the new town is being developed by Urban&Civic, who purchased the former MOD land, including the runway, in 2009. Outside of the development, a parcel of land remains as the military base, used by the US Air Force for non-flying operations.

As well as housing, Alconbury Weald will also have schools, industrial and office spaces, community and leisure facilities, shops and a health centre. Included within the infrastructure being built to serve the scheme, there is also a reserved plot for a possible railway station.

Set in the heart of the growing development and complementing the current primary school provision, two steel-framed schools will form the Education Campus; Prestley Wood Academy SEND School and Alconbury Weald Church Academy Secondary School.

The SEND School was completed in 2024 by Morgan Sindall Construction (with AC Bacon Engineering fabricating and erecting the steelwork) and now the two companies are working together again on the secondary school.

Cambridgeshire County Council is delivering the school in line with its aspirations for sustainability, energy efficiency and best practice design in order to reduce the inherent energy demand and associated CO₂ emissions of the building.

In response to this, the school incorporates effective passive design measures through the adoption of a fabric first approach, followed by the use of low-carbon energy sources in the form of air source heat pumps. Energy demand is then further reduced using zero carbon energy generators in the form of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels located at roof level. 

The efficient design includes a steel frame that supports precast flooring planks; a solution chosen for its speed, structural and thermal mass qualities and associated lower emissions, according to Morgan Sindall senior project manager Gareth Harris.

“The underside of the planks and M&E services will remain exposed in areas of the completed building, allowing the floors to absorb heat during the day and dissipate it at night, in line with the MEP design strategy for the scheme.”

Consisting of a three-storey main block and a separate sports hall, Alconbury Weald Church Academy will initially cater for 600 pupils as a 4 Form of Entry (4FE) secondary school. However, there is flexibility with the project’s design to facilitate a potential future expansion to an 8FE/1,200 pupil school, when required.

The main block is T-shaped on plan, with the vertical wing accommodating a triple-height dining hall and a kitchen. The future expansion of the school would see this wing extended to provide additional steel-framed accommodation.

Aside from its flexibility, another benefit of using the steel-framed option has been its speed of construction. The 450t of steelwork that forms the main block and sports hall were erected in a seven-week programme.

Given the site is a former airfield, with few trees and little shelter, the construction is open to the elements and in particular the wind.

“We had a few periods when our lifting operations had to stop, due to wind, but otherwise we’ve had no challenges with the erection. We had the site pretty much to ourselves, which gave us plenty of space for materials to be stored,” says AC Bacon Engineering project manager Martin Whitehead.

Prior to the steelwork erection starting, the school’s brownfield plot underwent a remediation programme, followed by the installation of vibro-stone columns and pad foundations for the main block and sports hall.

Using its own mobile cranes, AC Bacon erected the steel frame of the main block in four phases. Once each phase was complete, the area was handed over to the concrete contractor, who installed the precast planks, stairs and lift shaft.

“As well as its thermal mass attributes, the precast flooring solution was also used as it efficiently formed the required spans and allowed the classrooms and other facilities to be column-free,” says Sweco senior engineer Filipe Henriques.

Much of the main block features columns spaced at 7.2m centres, with internal members positioned within a central corridor that separates the building’s two rows of classrooms.

The exception to this column spacing is the aforementioned dining hall that has 9m-long spans and a double-height main hall/drama studio, which is formed with a series of 15m-long Westok beams.

The main block’s frame derives its stability from bracing, which is predominantly located around the stairwells and the lift shaft. With no cross-bracing within internal walls, further flexibility has been designed into the steel frame, whereby classrooms could be enlarged, if required, with the removal of partitions.

The adjacent sports hall adopts a similar design approach, with cross bracing located around the perimeter walls to provide stability. This structure has two parts: a double-height four-court sports hall, formed with a series of 20m-long Westok beams and a lower section that wraps around two elevations.

The lower part of the building will accommodate changing rooms, a multi-use activity studio and plant spaces.

Councillor Bryony Goodliffe, chair of the Children and Young People Committee at Cambridgeshire County Council, says: “The Alconbury Weald Education Campus is an important investment for the County Council, supported by funding from Urban&Civic, and the new secondary school is central to that.  

“We want to ensure all children and young people in Cambridgeshire have opportunities to thrive. I’m delighted that the Academy is set to provide those opportunities to the current and future residents of the new community.”

Alconbury Weald Church Academy is due to open in September 2027.