Nearly £5 million of funding secured by Pershore College to have 'significant impact' on provision
It's been awarded around £4.8m in grant funding from the Department for Education's Construction Skills Capacity Fund
A multi-million pound funding boost for Pershore College is a "brilliant opportunity" not just for the area and Wychavon but Worcestershire as a whole, the chief executive of the group which run it has said.
Further and higher education provider the Warwickshire College Group (WCG) have secured nearly £4.8m in grant funding from the Department for Education's Construction Skills Capacity Fund for the campus.
Through it, it said the money would support a "rapid and transformative expansion" of its Pershore Construction Academy which it opened last September , taking the capacity from 67 learners to over 275.
Principal and chief executive at WCG, Sara-Jane Watkins, said they were delighted as the bid for it had been a "shared vison", which had been supported by MPs Nigel Huddleston and as well as them working with Worcestershire County Council and Wychavon District Council.
"This investment really will make a stunning difference to the provision that we can offer at the campus and the number of students that we can support," she said.
"It's nearly £5m, which will enable us to expand our provision across all construction trades but also by levels, so going to a higher level and potentially degree, but also apprenticeships and looking at groundworks and civil engineering as well.
"So it really will have a significant impact in terms of opportunities for young people who are interested in going into the construction trade, but also those individuals wishing to upskill who already work within construction."
The college's construction academy currently offers full-time foundational training in carpentry, plumbing, and multi-skills, but part of its plans are now to introduce a dedicated apprenticeship centre for all construction trades.
It's also looking to turn a disused 1,300 square metre machine workshop into a dedicated, state-of-the-art academy building, as well as the Norbury hostel into the Pershore Construction Academy Apprenticeship Centre.