Braintree and Harlow College Secure £6.5 million Skills Capital Funding

Essex has won a share of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) skills capital funding to boost skills and training needs, identified by the Essex Employment and Skills Board through the Skills Evidence Base.

The College at Braintree (part of Colchester Institute) has secured £4m to create a new two storey STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) building to support the college's students and strengthen links with the area's manufacturing and construction sectors.

The funding will create three engineering workshops, two construction workshops and six other large modern classrooms, each with high-tech facilities to directly support skills needs identified by the Essex Employment and Skills Board.

Harlow College has secured £2.5m to finance its new Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Centre. The state-of-the-art facility will enable the college to develop aspiring young engineers and operations / maintenance engineers by providing hands-on experience and real cutting-edge technical skills. The new centre will also provide upskilling, reskilling and professional development for people already in employment. The project involves replacing existing buildings with more than 2,000m2 of new engineering facilities including CNC, assembly and robotics, fabrication maintenance and PLC training, product design and development, metrology lab, electrical and mechanical services.

Harlow and Braintree are two of five further education colleges across the South East to successfully win a bid to the Skills Capital Fund, designed to reduce skills shortages, support growth industries and provide the best possible facilities for young people to access vocational skills and training. Further information about the SELEP is available at: http://www.southeastlep.com/