West Sussex County Council has awarded just shy of £500,000 to establish a Civil Engineering Training Centre at Brinsbury College.
The £499,880 grant was taken from £3.184m of legacy funds received by the council from Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) upon its closure as a LEP.
The money will be used by the Chichester College Group, which runs Brinsbury.
A spokesman for the college said they were delighted by the county council’s decision to provide funding.
They added: “As part of our curriculum development working with [the] county council, we’ve been exploring opportunities to introduce groundworks training to address a local skills gap.
“Given the regional gap in provision, this offer aligns with our hard landscaping provision and Brinsbury’s role in delivering essential land-based training for future green and urban spaces.
“We are currently in the early planning stages, so details around buildings and time-lines are still being developed. This may include the redevelopment of existing areas on site.
“We expect to confirm next steps and time-scales as the project progresses, with further updates to follow in the coming months.”
A report from Carolyn Carr, the council’s head of economic development, said there were skills gaps and limited training provision in West Sussex when it came to civil engineering and groundworks.
She added: “The decision to provide a grant for the Civil Engineering Training Centre is to ensure a dedicated facility for skills training that will provide 700 starts across the range of provision in the first five years.
“This will include funded provision for school leavers and apprentices. There are no providers of the planned apprenticeship standards in West Sussex; East Sussex and Hampshire both have this provision.”
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