£4m sports centre upgrade at Barnsley College
BARNSLEY College has been successful in securing funding from the Skills Funding Agency’s (SFA) College Capital Investment Fund (CCIF) to enable £4m of upgrades to its sport and public services facilities.
The College will receive £1.3m from the CCIF to build an extension to the existing Sports Academy and convert the former theatre building at the Honeywell campus into a multi-function sports hall, dance studio, gym and bistro. The remaining £2.7m investment will be raised by the College.
The changes will create eight new classrooms for Sport and Public Services students and a new social space as well as the sports hall which will be open to the public. Work is planned to start early next year and be completed in the summer.
College principal, Colin Booth, said: “This is great news for our students and the local community who will be able to make use of the excellent new sports hall. Our Sports Academy was named Regional College of the Year for Yorkshire and the Humber by British Colleges Sport earlier this year and the new facilities will serve to strengthen the already outstanding provision we offer.”
The new sports facilities are one of many new building projects the College is currently working on to enhance learning facilities for students and the town as a whole. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) centre on Old Mill Lane is currently being developed, a new £17m Sixth Form College is planned to open in 2015 and a new £10.8m Construction Centre is planned to be built on the Honeywell campus, also opening in 2015.
