Highland Council (Scotland, UK) announced in late December that North Scotland (Wick) Ltd achieved financial close for the Wick Campus PPP project on Friday 19 December 2014.

Aviva has provided a £48 million loan to hub North Scotland (Wick) Ltd for the project. Galliford Try plc is the sponsor of the project.

The Wick Campus project will see a new community campus for Wick incorporating replacements for the existing Wick High School, a replacement primary school, the Newton Park Primary School, for the existing South Primary School and Pulteneytown Academy Primary School.  The campus will also replace the existing community swimming pool and community library facilities with new provision.

The project, which is due to complete in September 2016, will be developed on a design, build, finance and maintenance (DBFM) basis.

Galliford will invest £1.6 million in funding for the project and will provide ongoing maintenance and lifecycle management services under a contract worth £13 million over the 25-year concession period.

Councillor Alasdair Christie, Chairman of The Highland Council's Education, Children and Adult Services Committee commented:

"I am very pleased that the Wick Campus contract has now been signed off and the community can look forward to the new facilities being available. This is another major milestone in the Council's programme of school building."

Caithness Civic Leader Councillor Gail Ross added:

"I welcome the news about the Campus project, which when added to the Noss Primary School and Council Office projects represents very significant investment in the town. This is a great relief to the parents and the wider community in East Caithness. The campus has been a long time coming and finally we can move forward to seeing more action on site. I would like to thank all our staff that have worked really hard on reaching this stage."

Barry Fowler, Managing Director at Aviva Commercial Finance, said:

"The funding of this project is another strong addition to our hub lending portfolio and we're delighted to have worked with hub North Scotland on this project. We provide long term, fixed rate debt across a number of sectors and this scheme represents a good long term investment for us and our customers."

The Wick Campus project is part of the Scottish Government 'Scotland's Schools for the Future programme', and the Council welcomes the significant financial and project support from Scottish Government and the Scottish Futures Trust which has allowed the project to progress.

Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in the United Kingdom. It shares borders with the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Moray and Perth and Kinross.