One of Plymouth’s biggest investments in its future labour market has been unveiled with exciting proposals to nurture the city’s home-grown talent.
An ambitious plan is being put forward to place City College Plymouth at the heart of the city in the Civic Centre.
The Council has secured £8.5 million Levelling Up Funding to deliver a major new City Centre College campus focussed on future green blue jobs and a Cabinet paper has been published today to accept the funding for the project which could see a new campus located across three floors of the Civic.
City College Plymouth has been looking to expand its offer and base in the city. Its success in attracting strong engineering and construction partnerships has led the college to look further afield for locations to host a new skills hub for the city.
The new city centre campus could see up to 60 courses being delivered, focussing on the city’s emerging marine sector – known as the blue sector – as well as a host of programmes in the environment – the green sector. These courses could range from construction, engineering, energy and science to off-shore wind, electric vehicle technology, battery storage, net zero and sustainable technology.
This could lead to up to 2,000 extra people, from school leavers to adult learners, coming from Plymouth and the surrounding area into the city centre to learn new skills in special facilities including a sustainable business centre, virtual training labs, science labs, career hubs and other education spaces.
City College’s Chief Executive, Jackie Grubb said: “The opening of this state-of-the-art Skills Hub represents a fantastic opportunity for our college and for the city. It will give Plymouth residents access to high-paying jobs and careers in growing industries. By investing in homegrown talent, the Skills Hub will bring huge benefits to both the local economy and the wider community.”
Cabinet member for Education, Skills and Apprenticeships, Councillor Sally Cresswell said: “We need to invest in our young people and adult learners to equip them with confidence and skills for a changing jobs market.
“We have a wave of job opportunities on the horizon – up to 8,000 new jobs to be created here by 2030, with a big focus on blue and green industries, especially now we are home to the first National Marine Park.
“But we need to be prepared and we need our residents to have the skills ready to make the most of this extraordinary moment.
“We are working together as a city to support our communities to gain new skills so that the city can flourish. Our engineering and business sectors need to be confident there are enthusiastic, bright and trained future employees on their way.”
It is proposed that the basement, ground floor and first floor of the Civic could make an ideal campus. To enable this significant change of direction for the Civic Centre, the Cabinet is being asked to formally accept and allocate the funding and buy back the building and car park from Urban Splash.
Urban Splash recognise the scale of the opportunity for skills in the city as well as a Government investment totalling £18.5m and as a result, have agreed to sell the Civic and car park back to the Council for £1 to enable this project to happen.
A spokesperson for the company said: “We have worked extremely closely with Plymouth City Council to get this challenging project going. When the opportunity of further LUF funding and the College came about we agreed that, in the spirit of partnership, to transfer the building back so that the funding can be secured and the jobs created.”
Councillor Mark Lowry, city centre champion added: “Urban Splash have invested significant amounts of time and effort in this building, securing planning, stripping the interiors, working with us to secure Future High Streets funding and getting the building ready for its new life. We are extremely grateful for their help in getting the building to this stage. We know it has not been easy and we are grateful for their partnership approach to enable its delivery.
“This new future for the Civic will also help increase the number of people coming in and out of the city centre, which has to be a good thing for our businesses.”
The cabinet paper (due to be discussed on 18 March) recommends giving the go-ahead to enter an agreement for a lease with City College Plymouth in relation to parts of the Civic as well as re-allocating of £8.5m of Levelling Up Funding to support future capital works to enable the occupation of the lower floors of the Civic by City College Plymouth.
It also recommends the Council takes back ownership and control of the Civic Centre to enable the first stage of restoration works to progress within the Future High Streets Fund grant window.
Other recommendations include approving buying the freehold of the Civic from Urban Splash for £1 and approving the transfer of £2.45m of FHSF grant from the Civic Centre project to the Guildhall project and for the Council to underwrite the scheme until additional gap funding investment has been secured.