Construction work is to begin in earnest over the next few weeks on the long-awaited $4 million final redevelopment of Dellwood Middle School.

Superior Builders was awarded the contract at the end of last year to build the school's new science block, gymnasium, amphitheatre, sports courts and therapy rooms, and will begin building work soon. They have already started the preparation, but have promised to "fast forward" the job to ensure it is completed on time and on budget.

Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott said the building programme was due to be completed in 65 weeks and would see the central middle school finally being furnished with indoor sports facilities and proper science labs.

The lack of facilities at the school has been a source of frustration for some time for teachers, parents and students, which finally resulted in them staging a demonstration in the summer of 2001. The final phase of the work was supposed to be completed about two years' ago, but problems with the architects resulted in severe delays.

"This has had its moments of controversy, when the students were encouraged to join the protest of teachers, and now, our promise to get this underway has been fulfilled," said Mr. Scott. "We apologise for the delay, but it ran into a whole contractual dispute."

Mr. Scott said the previous Government had signed a contract with the architects to complete each of the phases at Dellwood, but then the company went out of business.

"We had to find a new set of architects who would take up the project at that stage. Just getting that all sorted out, from a legal point of view, took time," added the Minister.

Superior Builders, which put in a bid for $4.17 million, was chosen by the Ministry of Works and Engineering over D&J Construction, at $5.46 million, Somers Construction at $5.2 million and DeCosta at $5.47 million. Some construction experts, who would not be named, said they did not believe the renovations could be completed below $5 million, but said they could not fault Government for opting for the cheaper version if Superior believed it could complete the job on time and on budget.

And they congratulated Superior Builders on winning the contract. When The Royal Gazette spoke to Mr. Scott, he said the overall price for Superior was $4.3 million, and he said the company had been chosen because it had done excellent work for the Ministry in the past, including Bayview - the new Teen Services building in Pembroke - the water treatment works, and the Police Station and Post Office in Somerset.

The Minister said: "Superior did a quality job at Bayview. We knew what they were about, and their numbers were close to ours, and they would have to stand behind those numbers. We want to get value for the tax payer, and that's why we can avoid a low bid if we feel it is too low, but we do an assessment, and they came right in on our numbers."

Owner of Superior Rudolph Richardson last night said preparatory work had already started on the site, with hoardings being erected to keep students out of the construction site, and the marsh land prepared.

Now, he said, he was just waiting for all the trees on the site to be protected before construction work begins in earnest.

He said: "We started on December 9, but no construction work has yet taken place. We are actually preparing to start the construction of the buildings.

"It is a fairly large job - and is quite detailed - and there is a lot of marsh land down there, so that is something that we will have to deal with. Steel piles have to be driven and we are setting all that out now."

But Mr. Richardson said for all this the project was marginally bigger than his previous contracts, and he had an extensive record when it came to completing Government contracts.

He added: "We have basically worked non-stop for six years. Our steel is now ordered for this job, we have the shop drawings for that and everything seems to be on time. We just have to get the trees protected. But we are going to be fast forwarding on this one."