CDP, more than €7 million for school buildings: new educational and sustainability models
A long relationship with Bagno a Ripoli, fully focused on schools. For somewhere in the region of 30 years, CDP has been supporting the Municipality, with around 26,000 inhabitants in the province of Florence, to build, expand and renovate school buildings and so improve their education provision.
The latest financing, a €6.5 million flexible loan, was agreed in July. The beneficiary is the “Francesco Redi” middle school, in Ponte a Niccheri, which will be expanded and fully refurbished. The project includes the construction of new spaces for teaching with classrooms for musical workshops, group work and extracurricular activities. An auditorium will be built to be used by both school students and local young people as a meeting and training centre.
The project is innovative in its aims to make the best use all existing spaces by focusing on trialling new educational models for follow-up and extracurricular activities.
The new Redi school will also be sustainable, particularly from an energy point of view. The rooms will have large windows to take advantage of natural light and a photovoltaic system will be installed to supply clean energy.
The project is unparalleled in the area and CDP has not only offered financial support. In 2020, a memorandum of understanding was signed with the Municipality to provide technical and administrative advice.
In the early 2000s, Cassa Depositi e Presitti financed the renovation of the “Francesco Granacci” middle school with two ordinary loans of €500 thousand. The renovations included new labs for students to be involved in a range of innovative educational initiatives. For younger children, a CDP loan of €600 thousand allowed the “Bruno Cocchi” nursery school to be built, offering better services to families and helping children to thrive.