Building work resumed at the fee-paying senior school St Bedes recently after it was forced to cease last November after the construction company Rok went into administration.

The £7.7m project aims to construct two environmentally-friendly new boarding houses, due to open in the autumn and last year work was ahead of schedule. However with Rok heading into administration worked stopped overnight.

Danny Neely, business manager at the school, invited tenders for the completed of the construction work and just before Christmas it was decided that the Keir Group should take over. They began work on January 17.

The new houses will provide 136 student beds and staff accommodation, replacing some of the ‘tired’ houses currently being used.

Sensitive to environmental concerns the new houses will be equipped with solar panels to heat the bulk of the water needed and ground source heat pumps have already been laid to provide the majority of the heating within the buildings. They are also designed to fit in with surrounding buildings and will be finished off with Sussex cladding.

The school has grown exponentially since the 1990s (when I was there) and is now equipped with  a state of the art sports facility (last season Lewes FC used the sports facilities to keep players fit), a sixth form bar, extra student houses and much more.

Zumba Fitness Classes are currently held at the school – open to all