Staff at the Cork School of Music received an early Christmas gift yesterday when the building contractor Jarvis plc announced it had reached an agreement to sell a number of its contracts to a German group, Hochtief Developments (UK), including the construction of the new €60 million school. Louise Geaney reports.
"We're certainly relieved and our morale will most certainly be up," Mr Gerry Kelly, a lecturer at the school, said. "It's been some struggle, but the people of Cork have never let it go away, and we've stuck with it," he added.
The Cork School of Music is part of the Cork Institute of Technology. The head of development at CIT, Mr Michael Delaney, welcomed the news of the agreement yesterday.
"We look forward to receiving their proposals in due course and entering negotiations with Hochtief," said.
Jarvis, the original contractor for the new school, had been in talks with the German company for the last month regarding the disposal of its private finance initiative. Jarvis's PFI arm was selected to build and manage construction of schools in Manchester, Northern Ireland and Cork. However, the company ran into financial difficulty earlier this year and was unable to continue with the projects.
Yesterday afternoon, Jarvis announced it had agreed to sell its PFI bidding business for a consideration of £1.2 million payable on completion to Hochtief.
It will also gain up to £300,000 if financial closure is achieved on two of the existing PFI bids within two months following completion of the disposal.
A spokesman for Jarvis (Ireland) plc yesterday confirmed the company's satisfaction that an agreement could be reached with Hochtief.