The general contractors carrying out refurbishment work at Spice Valley Middle School said they were expecting to complete their work several months early - despite strike action by a sub-contractor.

Terry Griffiths, a director of BermudaTech Construction and the manager of the Spice Valley site, said claims by Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott in the House of Assembly on Friday that the improvement work may be delayed due to the action were not true.

He said, if anything, the work was running ahead of schedule.

Mr. Griffiths said: “Contrary to what has been said, we are not due to hand the site back over until August next year, but we believe we will be finished quite a bit before that. We are not behind. I think we will be in a position to hand over at the end of February. I don't know where these comments are coming from, but they are not correct.”

Mr. Scott told Parliament that work at the Warwick school may be delayed after a sub-contractor downed tools for a week following a row over money a fortnight ago.

He said he could not give a definitive on how work was progressing on the site, but said he had been given an assurance that workers would work overtime in order to make up the time.

Mr. Scott said with the refurbishment delays in the summer, which meant Spice Valley started its new term two weeks later than other schools, and the latest strike action, it could be that the work was put back.

But yesterday, Mr. Griffiths said that was not correct.

He added: “We were maybe put a week or seven days behind when the sub-contractor (Johnson Electric) stopped working, but I think we have caught up.”

It has been claimed that Johnson Electric downed tools after the company had not been paid for about a month by BermudaTech.

But Mr. Griffiths said in construction these sorts of things happened all the time, as sometimes there was more money going out for materials than there was coming in.

He said: “We have quite a bit of stuff coming from overseas and we have to pay up front for it. Sometimes we don't get paid as quickly as we would like (from the people who are hiring us).”

Mr. Griffiths said the money was paid and the sub-contractor was soon back at work.

Spice Valley has been undergoing a multi-million dollar refurbishment,which has seen its classrooms revamped, new bathrooms fitted, library overhauled and a garden area provided.

However, it is set to go on for a while yet as further phases of the work are carried out.