Midlands & East Anglia

Two new technology centres for the College of West Anglia

The College of West Anglia is to build two new technology centres – one on the Isle College campus in Wisbech and one on the Tennyson Avenue site in Kings Lynn. The values of the projects are £7.2m and £5.6m respectively. Further improvements totalling £20m are due to be made over the following four years.

Mark Reavell, the Director of Employer Engagement & Estates, is responsible for overseeing these projects within the college. He said: “Planning has been received on both projects. RG Carters won the tender for the Kings Lynn project and work will commence later this month (September). In Wisbech, it is a two stage tender process and this will not be concluded until early October. Work on this project is due to start in late October.”

This work will be followed by the refurbishment of the 1970s eight storey tower block at the College of West Anglia’s Tennyson Avenue site. The new blocks will accommodate students studying engineering, welding, electrical installation, electronics and joinery when it opens for the start of the 2012-13 academic year.

Both technology centres will be BREEAM Very Good or Excellent and have very low carbon footprint buildings. They have been designed by Pick Everards.

Funding came from a wide range of sponsors, including: Cambridgeshire and Norfolk County Councils, Fenland District Council, Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, EEDA and the SFA. The College of West Anglia also provided some of the funds from their own personal savings.

The scheme was previously put on hold due to issues with funding; the government scrapped the capital funding schemes for Further Education in 2008.

The College of West Anglia is one of the largest and most successful education and training providers in the Eastern Region and amongst the top 10% of colleges in the country. The College serves a mainly rural catchment area covering Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and south Lincolnshire. The student cohort is around 10,000 and there are currently over 950 full-time and part-time staff. They offer a range of courses, including apprenticeships in Engineering and Plumbing and adult courses for adults with little or no previous qualifications. In November 2007 the College was inspected by Ofsted and was found to be an ‘Outstanding College’.

For more information on the College of West Anglia, visit www.cwa.ac.uk.

Lindum Sturgeon

The project is going extremely well and on programme, with Lindum Sturgeon due to complete the contract on programme towards the end of October 2011. Mr Matt Tyers of Lindum Sturgeon said: “This is our first project with the College of West Anglia and hopefully the start of a long relationship with them in the ongoing redevelopment of their Kings Lynn campus and other sites within East Anglia.”

Based in Peterborough, Lindum Sturgeon carries out construction contracts in a region extending from the east of England to the Midlands and as far south as North London.

The company is active in all construction sectors including educational projects, industrial(particularly food factories), retail & commercial schemes and social housing. “We are bucking the trend by performing very well in this difficult economic climate, our stable financial position and strong forward workload puts us in a healthy position coming into 2012″ said Mr Tyers.

Lindum Sturgeon is a member of the Lindum Group of companies based in Lincoln.

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