Willmott Dixon starts Crowborough SEND school: logistics and safety lessons for project teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Willmott Dixon has begun construction of Acre Wood Academy in Crowborough, a £15.6m, two-storey steel-frame secondary SEND school providing 60 places for 11–16-year-olds for East Sussex County Council. Procured through the Procurement Hub 2 Framework and due to complete in winter 2026, the project sits adjacent to an existing primary SEND school that must remain fully operational, imposing tight logistical and safety constraints on site access and phasing. The scheme’s design is tailored to complex pupil needs, implying specialised internal layouts, acoustic treatment and controlled circulation that will influence structural and services coordination.
Technical Brief
- Two-storey steel frame implies standardised bay grids, simplifying offsite fabrication and erection sequencing.
- Proximity to an operational primary SEND school will drive segregated access routes and physical exclusion zones.
- Shared boundary conditions likely require enhanced hoarding, acoustic screening and dust suppression to protect vulnerable pupils.
- SEND-specific design will demand careful coordination of structural elements with acoustic linings and vibration control details.
- Construction phasing must minimise high-noise or high-vibration activities during school hours for safeguarding and wellbeing.
- Procurement via Procurement Hub 2 Framework introduces predefined H&S, CDM and performance management requirements.
- Similar co-located education schemes can lift safety baselines by adopting SEND-informed risk assessments and stakeholder engagement protocols.
Our Take
Within our 189 Infrastructure stories, only a small subset focus on specialist education facilities in the United Kingdom, so Acre Wood Academy positions Willmott Dixon as one of the more active contractors in the SEND school niche for East Sussex and neighbouring councils.
A £15.6m, two-storey steel-frame build for just 60 SEND places implies a relatively high cost per pupil compared with mainstream school projects in our database, reflecting the space, safety and specialist fit-out requirements that are increasingly shaping UK local authority education capex.
Use of the Procurement Hub 2 Framework by East Sussex County Council aligns with a pattern in our coverage where English councils channel mid-sized social infrastructure schemes through national frameworks to compress procurement timelines and standardise safety and quality benchmarks.
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.
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