Esh Construction has completed the new three-storey teaching block and sports centre extension at Greenfield Academy in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, bringing the main building phase of the school’s redevelopment to completion ahead of demolition and landscaping works planned for 2027.
The new accommodation contains 19 classrooms and specialist spaces for science, information technology, art, and design and technology. An extension to the sports centre will allow the academy to make additional facilities available to the local community outside normal school hours.
Esh was appointed to deliver the new school facility in June 2025 on behalf of Durham County Council and the Advance Learning Partnership Multi Academy Trust. Earlier project information placed the teaching block investment at £14 million, with a separate £4 million refurbishment contract covering retained parts of the school estate.
The council and the trust have supported the investment to provide modern facilities for up to 750 students. Planning consent was granted in late 2024, enabling the replacement teaching accommodation to be developed while the existing academy continued operating.
Four classrooms occupy the ground floor alongside the principal design and technology department. The first floor provides 12 classrooms, staff accommodation and three meeting rooms, while the second floor concentrates science teaching in two studios, three laboratories, a preparation room, a chemistry studio and three additional classrooms.
The arrangement brings together ordinary teaching rooms and spaces requiring specialist services. Laboratories, for example, may need appropriate water supplies, drainage, electrical provision and ventilation, while design and technology workshops must accommodate the equipment and supervision arrangements required by their teaching activities.
According to the project team, photovoltaic panels and air source heat pumps have been installed as part of the building services design. The contractor worked with Howarth Litchfield Architects, BGP, KYOOB and Gemini to incorporate energy efficiency and lower-carbon options into the development.
Photovoltaic panels generate electricity from sunlight, while a heat pump transfers energy from the outside air into the building’s heating system. Actual energy consumption depends on equipment sizing, the building’s insulation, the temperatures at which heating operates and how the control systems respond to changing occupancy and weather.
Neither the installed solar capacity nor the heating system’s seasonal performance has been disclosed. The project information also does not contain a measured annual energy or emissions saving, so the environmental measures cannot yet be evaluated against a verified operating baseline.
Grant Watson, construction director at Esh Construction, said: “We are incredibly proud to have completed the construction of the new school building and sports centre extension at Greenfield Academy.”
The new facilities were delivered alongside a programme of refurbishment to existing school buildings. Esh’s commercial building division completed that work in September through phases intended to minimise disruption to teaching and other daily school activities.
Music and drama classrooms were addressed first, followed by the main hall, reception, dining and kitchen spaces. The refurbishment also included a replacement roof with new insulation and weatherproof membranes, upgraded ceilings and floor finishes, decoration, and internal partitions to create additional teaching rooms.
Retaining part of the school estate required the contractor to coordinate new construction with the protection and adaptation of existing buildings. Roof works change the weather protection and thermal performance of the retained accommodation, while revised room layouts can affect the location of services and the movement of pupils and staff through the campus.
The works were carried out as a phased programme rather than through a complete closure of the site. Delivering construction within an operating school requires careful planning of access, material deliveries, working areas and the separation of pupils from active building operations.
At an earlier stage, Esh reported that the main teaching block’s structural frame and roof were complete, with brickwork, glazing and initial mechanical and electrical installation progressing. Those activities preceded the latest milestone, which marks completion of the new educational accommodation and sports centre extension.
James Keating, executive headteacher at Greenfield Academy, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be taking ownership of our new building, and the children are incredibly excited to begin enjoying the fantastic new facilities it provides.”
The new spaces provide teaching accommodation alongside the older buildings that remained in service during construction. Completion of the replacement block does not mean the entire site redevelopment has finished: a further demolition programme is planned to remove redundant structures now that the new facilities have been delivered.
Esh expects demolition of the former school buildings to take approximately three months. Its civil engineering division will then undertake the remaining hard and soft landscaping, with the next phase scheduled to begin in early spring 2027.
That sequence allows the contractor to release the areas previously occupied by the old accommodation before completing external routes, surfaces and planting. The final layout of the surrounding grounds will therefore follow the demolition programme rather than coincide with the handover of the new teaching block.
The development has also generated local work and training activity. Esh reports donating £10,000 to Durham charities and community groups through its Constructing Local programme. Work placements, including experience and T Level opportunities, totalled 36 weeks, while apprentices accumulated 168 weeks on site.
Those figures describe the company’s reported community and training commitments rather than additional construction capacity or employment guarantees. They form part of the delivery record for a scheme involving new education buildings, the upgrading of retained facilities and further civil engineering work.
With the teaching block and sports extension complete and refurbishment finished, the project is moving into its final site clearance and landscaping phases. The academy has its new principal accommodation, while the full external redevelopment remains scheduled to progress during 2027.
