A bid to the Government’s FE Capital Transformation Fund has resulted in Nottingham College being awarded £1.6m to invest in the development and enhancement of its 25 Stoney Street campus, home to more than 600 students studying art and design related courses in the heart of the city’s Creative Quarter.
This latest news comes on the back of another successful bid, for £4m, from the same fund, to develop a brand new centre for around 200 college students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, at the College’s Basford campus.
The Stoney Street project will see much needed investment in the Grade II listed former lace warehouse, home of Nottingham College’s art, design and crafts centre.
Students access a wide variety of courses within the centre, from evening ceramics classes through to fine art degree level courses.
Students from the centre go onto university, prestigious art schools and into employment in Nottingham’s burgeoning creative industries.
The college’s arts and design provision provides progression routes into such diverse careers as architecture, VFX, theatre and set design, furniture and garment manufacturing, graphic design and amination, web and app development, product design, branding and marketing and much more.
The investment in the centre will bring about improvements in the learning environment including new IT infrastructure, improved accessibility, new facilities as well as building repairs and improvements.
The College has been investing significantly in new training and skills development to prepare students for jobs and careers that, in some cases, don’t even exist yet!
A £1.2m bid, awarded through the Government’s Strategic Development Fund, has helped the college develop new innovative programmes in engineering and robotics, modern construction methods, bioscience and digital industries.
A new digital broadcast centre is currently being developed within its City Hub campus offering brand new, state of the art training facilities in TV and Film production, VFX and motion graphics, web, vod and podcasting, digital design and animation and more. This new centre will welcome students from this September.
A further bid of over £1m, awarded to the College by the OfS (Office for Students) has been invested in a new laboratory science and innovation centre, offering degree level training to meet the growing demands of the sector locally and nationally.
The College’s ambitions extend to a new suite of training programmes at its EMTEC Ruddington campus. Already renowned nationally for its breadth of automotive training, the college hopes to attract funding to grow its fleet of electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and other automotive kit to equip mechanics, technicians and auto engineers with the skills for new jobs in an ever changing and innovating sector.
In the pipeline too is the creation of an adult nursing training ward within the college’s City Hub campus, offering healthcare students specialist training in adult nursing, health care, end of life and hospice care, as well as rehabilitation and physiotherapy. We await the outcome of the bid for funding for this project which is due in July.
Mohammed Ramzan, Deputy Principal for Nottingham College said:
“The College’s recent success in attracting investment demonstrates the vital role that colleges have in the development of skills and creation of local jobs. The engine rooms of local economies, FE Colleges have experienced years of reduced funding so Government funds, like the FE Transformation Fund, made available for FE colleges, are having a real positive impact on the job and career prospects of young people and adults in education.
“We’re eager to get underway with the works to improve Stoney Street as well as our new project at Basford to build a new centre for our students with more complex learning needs. We eagerly await the outcome of our other bids to develop innovative new provision to provide skills for the future. It’s an exciting time for us!”
