Plans submitted for new £13m campus at Leeds College of Building

Leeds College of Building has submitted a planning application to build a new £13m campus, alongside its existing campus on the city’s South Bank.

The new building would cover approximately 5,200 sq ms over four storeys, offering a wide range of classrooms, workshops and a central atrium.

If the application is successful, construction work would begin this summer, with the building being ready for the start of the 2018/19 academic year.

The development will be supported by a grant from the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership and will complement Leeds College of Building’s existing South Bank campus, which opened during the summer of 2015.

The £17m, 8,500 sq m building occupies a position between Cudbear Street and Black Bull Street and now serves a large number of Leeds College of Building’s 7,000 students, along with the College’s existing North Street and Millwright Street campuses.

Ian Billyard, principal at Leeds College of Building, said: “This is another exciting development for Leeds College of Building, as we look to further grow our presence in the South Bank area of Leeds.

“It’s just over 18 months since we opened our last campus and it has immediately become a major success story as well as a catalyst for what is now widely recognised as Leeds’s ‘education hub’.

“This new building would give us another state of the art modern learning environment where both students and staff can thrive, and it will enable us to continue building on the high standard of education and training that we are renowned for. It will also be highly sustainable and will prioritise all the modern building values of the 21st century, which is an integral part of the curriculum across all our trades and courses.”

Mike Harris from Leeds-based architecture practice Fuse Studios, which has designed both the new building as well as the college’s existing South Bank site, added: “We’re delighted to be working with Leeds College of Building again on another hugely exciting project.

“The new building is specifically designed to sit comfortably alongside Leeds College of Building’s flagship South Bank campus. It features red-brick and metal cladding, to echo the area’s industrial heritage, and will be another highly sustainable building, set to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating.

“Phase Two will be a teaching tool in its own right for the College’s students and has the potential to become another landmark building in this fast moving part of the city.”

Leeds College of Building is an approved Apprenticeship Levy provider and offers a wide range of Apprenticeships in trades such as brickwork, carpentry and joinery, electrical, painting and decorating, plastering, plumbing and wall and floor tiling.

In addition, the College offers 22 technical Apprenticeship routes such as surveying, transport planning, architectural technology, building services and civil engineering together with two Higher Level Apprenticeships in Construction Management (Sustainability) and Facilities Management which offer university equivalent work based education.