Morgan Sindall’s Broadford Primary School: Passivhaus design notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Ground has broken on Morgan Sindall Construction’s £21m Broadford Primary School on the Isle of Skye, being delivered for The Highland Council to Passivhaus Classic standard for low operational energy demand. The scheme combines a new primary school, nursery, gym hall, public library and council service point, plus an all‑weather, floodlit sports pitch to maximise community use of the site. Construction is programmed through to summer 2027, giving designers time to refine fabric-first detailing and airtightness strategies needed to achieve Passivhaus performance in a coastal Highland climate.
Technical Brief
- Contract value confirmed at £21m for Broadford Primary School and associated community facilities.
- Morgan Sindall Construction appointed as main contractor by The Highland Council for delivery.
- Scheme bundles school, nursery, gym hall, public library and council service point into one complex.
- All‑weather, floodlit sports pitch adds evening and winter community‑use loading to access and parking design.
Our Take
Within our 735 Infrastructure stories, £20m–£30m education builds like Broadford Primary School sit at the smaller end of Morgan Sindall Construction’s public-sector workload, which is increasingly balanced by larger hospital and transport schemes across the United Kingdom.
The Highland Council’s investment on the Isle of Skye aligns with a cluster of ‘Sustainability’-tagged UK projects in our database where rural authorities are using school replacements to upgrade building fabric and services to near-net-zero standards, rather than retrofitting ageing stock.
A completion horizon of summer 2027 places Broadford Primary School among longer-duration social infrastructure jobs in our Projects-tagged coverage, signalling that supply-chain risk and inflation allowances are now being baked into programme planning even for relatively modest community assets.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
