College sets out £34m vision for campus

Deputy principal Ian Harmer revealed that a £3m grant had been secured from the Skills Funding Agency towards the cost of a new state-of-the-art animal management centre to open to students in September 2014, if a planning application to York City Council is successful.

Animal management is the college’s biggest single subject area and the new centre would be opened to the public to visit out of term time. The facility would be a two-storey building built to high environmental standards with a glass facade, seven teaching areas and space for animals to be kept on the ground floor. It would also feature a classroom specifically for veterinary nursing teaching which would replicate a real veterinary surgery.

Later phases of the scheme would add new residential facilities to double the number of beds for staff and students to 600; improvements to the college farm with new species added; an international standard equine centre with a polo field and new teaching areas; a teaching block, and an engineering workshop.

The college hopes to complete the revamp, in its entirety, by September 2017 when it expects 4,500 students to be enrolled on its courses in agriculture and land management, which encompass qualifications through to honours degree level.

An extra 120 teaching and support staff jobs would be created as a result. The college currently employs around 500 people.

Mr Harmer said: “It’s about enhancing the student experience, making them more employable and providing our employers in the region and beyond with students that are fit for the workplace.”

David Spencer, of York-based DSP Architects, is working with the college on the designs.

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