Bradford College

New £50million Campus Progressing to Schedule

Another milestone in the development of Bradford College’s new £50million campus was achieved this week with the completion of a new, temporary entrance for the Westbrook Building.

The fully glazed entrance onto Carlton Street will function for approximately two years during the construction of the new build, which will be delivered by BAM Construction.

The temporary main entrance features revolving doors into the building and will also house a visitor’s centre and viewing platform for all staff, students and guests to observe progress on the new 23,000m2 building.

Reception staff working at the new temporary entrance have reported that feedback from staff and student has been extremely positive. 

Julie Hayley, Westbrook Front of House Champion within the Reception Team added: “I think the new reception area is a vast improvement on the previous one.  It offers students and staff a light, bright, spacious and modern area that’s a ‘one stop shop’ for all their needs. Our Enrolment and Student Finance Team are all easily located in one reception area so that students can be referred for advice and guidance.”   

Dan Brennand, Public Service student (aged 16) commenting on the new reception area said: “It’s good, I like the new revolving doors and you can get more people through them quicker.”

Dan Jones, Public Service student (aged 16) added: “It looks really good!  It’s much better then the old reception area.  Some people expected Bradford College to be rundown during the construction period, but it actually shows how good it is here.”

Along with the demolition of the Westbrook Entrance and Hall, BAM have also demolished the basement of the former Randall Well Building as work gets underway on constructing the foundations of the new state of the art campus.

The eco-friendly campus design will rise to seven storeys at its highest point, have a light and airy feel and will be sympathetic to the large-scale mill and warehouse buildings that characterise parts of Bradford.

The new build will be funded by the College itself with a £35m bank loan and £15m cash reserves. As part of the new build agreement with Bradford College, BAM Construction has committed to use as many local suppliers and sub contractors as possible during the two year project. The use of local workers during the construction development will be a significant source of local employment and will greatly benefit the local economy.

Bradford College Principal and Chief Executive, Michele Sutton, OBE said: “We’re very excited and looking forward to June 2014 when our new building will be complete. We know that we are going to provide a top class education facility for people in Bradford and we are also going to help regenerate the centre of Bradford, which is great!”

The project comes after the College faced a crushing disappointment when a previous £120 million transformation plan was rejected at the last hurdle two years ago. In January 2012 the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills gave permission for the new scaled-down project, which will house Westbrook, McMillan Building, Appleton and the Old Building.

The new build is the second phase of Bradford College’s Accommodation Strategy. The first phase involved the development of Trinity Green Campus in 2008, a state of the art building which houses the Engineering, Construction and Sport curriculum areas. The sports facilities now feature in the London Organising Committee Pre-Games Training Camp Guide for the Olympics in 2012.

Vice Principal of Corporate Services, Andy Welsh comments: “We’re looking forward to working with BAM Construction to maximise the opportunity of the development project for the current students at the College over the next couple of years and to assist with the regeneration of Bradford and the city centre.”

Jason Pink, BAM Construction Project Manager, said: “We are looking forward to delivering high quality education facilities in the future for the community of Bradford and beyond.”

BAM at Bradford College’ facebook page is now live.  Click on the link below and ‘like’ it to get exclusive photos and artist impressions of the new building as well as on site progress:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/BAM-Bradford-College/195608163847839