A new motor vehicle engineering centre is to be built by Leicester college on its Abbey Park campus.
The college hopes to enrol over 100 additional learners on its Motor Vehicle courses in 2015/2016 as well as offer vital learning progression opportunities to existing learners.
The groundbreaking ceremony took place on Tuesday at 2:15pm and was attended by Leicester City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby, Verity Hancock, the Principal of Leicester College, and Corin Crane, Director of the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP).
The centre will be the first step towards the construction of the Leicester College Skills Village, which is set to take form over the next few years.
Last July, the college was awarded £0.64m for use in 2014 and 2015, and a further £1.54m was granted for 2016 and 2017. These funds will be used to construct the Abbey Park Campus Skills Village as well as renovation of Leicester Colleges’ other campuses, including student services and provisions at the Freemen’s Park Campus. These developments are part of the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnerships Growth Deal Funding.
Principle of Leicester College, Verity hancock said, “The cost overall is sort of shy of about £4 million and we are very fortunate to be getting about two thirds of that granted to us by the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership”
“at the moment we don’t have the space to take people beyond level two in motor vehicle engineering and now we will be able to go beyond that to higher levels, which is also in line with government policy and the fact that we need to make sure people have a progression route through to employment”
These improvements to Leicester College aim to enable students to progress to a higher standard in their chosen field, and provide them with the necessary skills and sought-after skills that employers are looking for.
