WEST Cheshire College has received planning permission for two new-build projects, costing more than £41m.
Designed by one of the UK’s leading education specialists, Bond Bryan Architect, the buildings are at the college’s Ellesmere Port campus and on the Handbridge campus in Chester.
Students of different trades will be able to work alongside each other as on a building site, and can even build a house within the college’s internal project court.
The approximate construction value of both schemes together is £41m and work is due to start in March 2009, with the college taking full occupation of its new buildings in time for the new academic year in 2011.
West Cheshire College, a specialist vocational college, has taken an individual approach to its campus redevelopment, naming it Building a Difference – not just a Different Building.
The college aims to maximise organisational performance through its new buildings and motivate young people to learn in different ways.
Bond Bryan Architects’ associate director, James Pemberton, said: “West Cheshire College has invested considerable time working with the design team and planning fundamental changes to its approach to learners, methods of curriculum delivery, staffing, processes, systems and services.
“This has resulted in the college developing a new approach to its interface with the public and to delivery mechanisms based on real work environments, vocationally related learning resource centres and skill-build areas.
“Bond Bryan Architects has developed two schemes in parallel with each other, whose design is founded on the need to encompass these aims.”
The new building at Handbridge Campus will be 6,720sqm accommodated over three floors with landscaping, service areas and parking.
