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Designs revealed for £6.3m STEM and Health Skills Centre
Designs have
been revealed for a £6.3m STEM and Health Skills Centre in Bodmin that aims to
transform the teaching of industry-relevant skills in Cornwall
The STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and Health Skills Centre for North
and East Cornwall is being built by Truro and Penwith College with support from
the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), which is
meeting £3.78m of the costs through the Government’s Getting Building Fund
(GBF).
The LEP
successfully bid for £14.3m of GBF funding during the summer following a
Government call for ‘shovel-ready’ projects that could create jobs and support
post-Covid-19 economic recovery across the country.
Work on the
STEM and Health Skills Centre is expected to begin in February next year and
scheduled to be completed by March 2022.
The project
has been welcomed by Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government,
Luke Hall MP, who said:
“We
are levelling-up learning across the country so that our young people are
equipped with the skills they need to succeed. By supporting the new STEM and
Health Skills Centre in Bodmin with a £3.7 million Getting Building Fund
investment, we will be helping over 300 local people a year to enter further
education.
“The centre will also create 15 new jobs and support 150 business,
meaning the benefits will ripple across the whole community.”
The STEM and
Health Skills centre will offer engineering, manufacturing and digital skills
for the aerospace, space, creative, energy and mining sectors, in line with the
LEP’s Local Industrial Strategy.
And it will
provide a range of locally delivered nursing and care apprentices up to and
including registered nurse, extending the College’s current work with the Royal
Cornwall Hospital Trust to other health providers across the county. This will
make a significant contribution to meeting the current staffing shortfall in
health together with providing career routes wholly locally based and through
paid apprenticeships.
In total, the
centre expects to create 15 new jobs within five years and provide support to 150
businesses. It will offer 120 apprenticeships per year and is expected to help 300
people annually into further learning, leading to higher level vocational
qualifications.
Truro and Penwith College Principal
Martin Tucker said: “Everyone at Truro and Penwith College is excited about
the delivery of the new STEM and Health Skills Centre for Cornwall, especially as
we reach milestones such as a first look at the building design.
“The educational
and skills-growth potential the Skills Centre brings are the very epitome of the
forward-focussed, positive Cornwall that the College works hard to support and I’ve
no doubt that this important co-investment from the College and LEP will herald
in a new era in the growth of socio-economic opportunity for individuals,
communities and businesses across the north and east of Cornwall.
“We very much
look forward to seeing these designs become reality as building work starts in
the New Year.”
Frances Brennan, chair of the LEP’s
Employment and Skills Board,
said: “The STEM and Health Skills Centre will equip hundreds of people every
year with the skills demanded by new and growing areas of our economy, from
energy and mining, to e-health and space, all of which will be important to our
post-Covid recovery. I’m particularly pleased to see a focus on adult education.
Covid is having a tumultuous impact on the labour market and it’s vital people
have the opportunity to reskill.”
The building
has been designed by St Ives architects Poynton Bradbury Wynter Cole, who also
designed much of the Truro and Penwith College campus. It will feature a health
simulation suite for nursing and care skills, state-of-the-art engineering
workshops and be equipped with the very latest in digital technology.
The STEM and
Health Skills centre is planning to work closely with key Cornish employers to develop
bespoke courses to meet immediate and emerging skills needs.
The LEP is
supporting six other projects across Cornwall valued at £58m with £14.3m of GBF
investment, supporting 1,100 jobs.