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Strule campus will not open 'until at least 2025'

BBC Strule Shared Education campus, OmaghBBC

A landmark shared education campus in Omagh will not open until September 2025 "at the earliest".

The new date was revealed in the Department of Education's (DE) just-published annual report.

The Strule Shared Education Campus had originally been due to open in 2020, but has been delayed a number of times.

Arvalee Special School, which opened in 2016, is the only one of six schools to be built so far.

The estimated cost of the project has also risen substantially to £213m.

The Strule campus is the biggest school building project in Northern Ireland.

It will mean six schools and more than 4,000 pupils moving to the site of the former Lisanelly army base.

Loreto Grammar School, Omagh High School, Sacred Heart College, Omagh Academy and Christian Brothers Grammar School are set to get new buildings on the campus alongside Arvalee School.

Work began on the site in 2013.

Earlier this year, DE said that the provisional opening date for the campus was now September 2024.

However the department has now pushed that back a further year until 2025, according to its annual report.

Artist's impression Artist's impression of the Strule shared education campusArtist's impression
Six schools would move on to the site and share facilities

The report said that date was also still dependent on approval of an addendum to the business case and final confirmation that funding from the Fresh Start Agreement - signed in November 2015 - can be used to pay for the campus.

Under that agreement, £50m a year for 10 years was to be provided for integrated school buildings and shared education campuses.

"A significant amount of work has gone into updating the programme business case options, cost estimates, benefits, risks and re-confirming the overall value for money," the DE report said.

"A second addendum to the Strule business case has been developed and is currently awaiting approvals.

"Due to the ongoing procurement/business case delay and more recently the impact of Covid-19 on government business, there has been some slippage to completion dates with current estimates predicting the remaining schools will be on campus for September 2025 at the earliest."

The annual report also said that the process to find a contractor for the work is still suspended, but the department was working to "identify a solution".