Colchester Institute has been awarded £4.0m to enhance its teaching facilities which will see a two-storey extension to an existing teaching block featuring a large ground floor construction skills workshop and four large classrooms with break out areas.
The project will be funded by the Department for Education Construction Skills Capacity Fund. The College had to submit a competitive application to the fund which aims to increase capacity for post-16 and construction skills places in non-devolved areas. The fund provides support for 16 to 19 providers, further education colleges and sixth form colleges, to create additional student places where demand for post-16 education is growing.
Set to open in early 2028, the project will be supported by a £500,000 cash injection from the College’s own reserves. The new 723 square metre facilities will support expanded skills delivery in priority construction occupations including Bricklaying and Trowel Trades, retrofit and plant driver training, all supporting the College’s recent Technical Excellence College designation.
The College’s application was centred around its ability to support the aspirations of the Modern Industrial Strategy. The project will provide additional classroom teaching spaces supporting the recent expansion in groundworks training where Sizewell C and Lower Thames Crossing infrastructure projects will be a key destination for students, alongside Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects including the Offshore Wind Farm Extension projects with landfall and apparatus in Tendring, Freeport East and National Grid upgrades. This project will remove delivery constraints to ensure Colchester Institute can make a vital contribution to delivery of the ambitions set out in the Strategy.
Another driver for the project is to support the skills needed to meet the challenge of significant local house-building in the region, including at the proposed Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community. The Project will help more students gain the knowledge they need to progress to higher education, apprenticeships and employment, while improving their overall student experience. As well as providing additional teaching spaces, the new teaching block will offer lasting benefit for employers and the wider community, supporting economic growth throughout the region.
The new building will be adjacent to Block L at the back of the Colchester Campus which itself is currently undergoing a major refurbishment. Designed with sustainability in mind, college leaders are aiming for Passivhaus levels of energy-efficiency with considerable insulation, electric heating, solar panels and rainwater harvesting, a standard feature on all new buildings on the site as the College’s leadership and commitment to sustainable development is of paramount importance.
Gary Horne MBE, Deputy Chief Executive at Colchester Institute, said, ‘This is a significant investment in the future of the College and in our mission to realise the ambitions set out in our rolling 10-year master plan for Colchester Campus. As the largest provider of construction training in the East of England, this funding allows us to create even more capacity and the right environments needed to deliver high-quality education for current and future generations of students. The project also provides scope to develop new curriculum including retrofit installer courses, and others as we pivot towards the use of more sustainable construction technologies.’
