Midland construction group Shaylor is near to completing a £2.5 million extension to a top Rugby school where solar panels and ground source heat pumps have been installed in a bid to cut energy bills.

And with power costs continuing to surge it believes such environmentally friendly elements are set to become much more common across the sector.

The Rugby scheme is for boys’ grammar school Lawrence Sheriff and takes in a library, classrooms and meeting facilities.

Work started last November and the two-storey development is on target for hand-over at the end of August. It comes as Aldridge-based Shaylor Group has just achieved registration to the ISO14001:2004 environmental management standard. It has taken a year to implement.

David McLean, the group’s site manager at Lawrence Sheriff School, who has been 42 years in the building trades, said it was probably the most environmentally-led scheme he had ever worked on.

“We are talking about cutting edge technology which should vastly reduce energy bills,” said Mr McLean, pictured at the school, left, with Shaylor healthy, safety and quality adviser Jenny Cawley.

“With the cost of power going through the roof, if you can take advantage of a competitive alternative to gas and electricity then you are onto a winner.”

The ground source heat pumps saw Shaylor drill 100 m deep in three separate operations to insert special pipework to allow water circulation.

“The system works rather like a fridge in reverse,” noted Mr McLean.

It is produced by Coventry-based Geothermal International, which, since its establishment in 2000, has been involved with the design and implementation of over 100 such installations