Tarleton Academy in Preston is a new “Zero Carbon in Operation” (NZCiO) secondary school which will soon be home to 750 pupils who will switch this September from their outdated school adjacent to the new building. The £21m school is part of a generation of net zero learning environments that the Department for Education is rolling out. Its facilities include 36 classrooms, a 20m swimming pool, plus new fitness suite and multi-use games area. The existing school will be demolished when the new building opens next month. The school’s net zero carbon rating was achieved by its enhanced thermal building envelope, which includes increased air-tightness, triple glazing and reduced thermal bridging. The various massing, orientation, ventilation and shading strategies were tested in pre- construction via an iterative modelling process rather than just modelling for compliance. The pool uses micro-filtration rather than sand which reduces the pumping load and saves energy. Procured using the Department for Education (DfE) construction framework, the new Tarleton Academy is one of the DfE's flagship pilot projects. The school has renewable energy generation comprising both ground source and air source heat pumps. Furthermore, the roof features an array of 1,500 sqm photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, harnessing renewable energy and offsetting all energy used on site.

Willmott Dixon drilled 22 boreholes 150m deep for the ground source heat pump and the roof-mounted air source heat pumps to provide fossil free energy, with all energy use on site offset by 1,500 sqm of PV panels. Explains Willmott Dixon Operations Manager Simon Atkinson: “We worked hard to ensure the design was simple and familiar wherever possible, without reducing the architectural quality. The more complex shape a building is, the harder it will be to achieve NZCiO and every change has a knock-on effect. “The new school was built on the tight site of the existing school, which will be demolished. This informed the shape of the building and added to the complex logistics of maintaining a building site right in the middle of a live school.” Establishing good relationships with supply chain partners was a crucial part of the process. Says Atkinson: “Given the importance of our supply chain to the achievement of NZCiO, we engaged them early so they were involved right at the start of our zero-carbon journey. This is the first project in the North where we used Energy Synergy to bridge the performance gap and drive down energy costs.” Willmott Dixon’s EnergySynergyTM process involves a team of zero carbon specialists comparing actual energy performance for a period of two to three years after handover with energy performance targeted at the design stage, ensuring there is no difference in operational use against that predicted when designed. Willmott Dixon has gained much valuable experience from the pioneering project. Says Atkinson: “We learnt a great deal – while Ground Source Heat Pumps are expensive, they do provide free cooling. Also, avoid fancy technologies and keeping the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems simple means the school will be able to use and maintain the building efficiently for years to come.” Anthony Dillon, managing director for Willmott Dixon in the North, comments: “Tarleton Academy is a world class learning environment, net zero carbon in operation, and benefited from our extensive EnergySynergy™ performance monitoring process to reduce costs.” Talking to the Lancashire Post as the new school neared completion, Lesley Gwinnett, CEO of Endeavour Learning Trust, and former headteacher of Tarleton said: “We needed a new school – the old school was pretty decrepit – but we've managed to do here is absolutely amazing.

The staff and the kids are absolutely blown away with what we’ve got here in terms of this new school. We’re incredibly proud of it and I think what it does particularly is it is now a physical manifestation of the journey we’ve been on as a school to make sure we genuinely are at the heart of this community and [that we offer] amazing provision for our children, and we’re really proud today to open this school. “Really importantly for me and our children particularly, this is the most environmentally friendly building that you can get, in terms of how we’re heating it, in terms of the lighting, so not only is it going to be a sustainable building in that sense, but it means moving forward, the massive costs we have in school through our energy, Tarleton is going to be spearheading ways of... get[ting] the bills down and those things are important as well so we can spend that money on the children.” Tarleton Academy is Willmott Dixon’s latest ultra-sustainable education project. It follows the award-winning £38m Harris Academy Sutton, the UK’s largest Passivhaus accredited secondary school, and Hackbridge Primary School, the UK’s first Passivhaus ‘Plus’ education facility, which consumes only 75% of the 100% renewable energy it generates, selling the remainder back to the grid.

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