The construction of South Staffordshire College’s new Tamworth College campus reached completion at the end of August, with the college welcoming students for the start of the new academic year in September.
The new college replaces the former TORC and Tamworth College facilities with new, world-class, teaching and learning accommodation on a former 1970s department store site in Tamworth town centre.
The scheme is important to the future development of the college, as well as being a key component of Tamworth Borough Council’s Future High Streets Fund (FHSF) Programme, which is set to deliver transformational change to the market town of Tamworth, by bring new life to the town centre.
The relocation of Tamworth College to a new building on the former site of the Tamworth Co-operative Society department store, is an integral element of the College Quarter project, which will see the transformation of St. Editha’s Square onto which the college overlooks.
The college building is a four-storey building with a sub-basement, and centres around a central core which provides light, circulation and communal areas. The new college provides a high-quality teaching and learning environment through a mix of general teaching spaces, specialist teaching spaces, learning and study spaces, support spaces and public-facing teaching spaces.
Teaching facilities include an automotive workshop with accommodation for up to three vehicles, brickwork workshops, engineering workshops, electrical engineering workshops, carpentry workshops, catering training kitchen, training cafeteria, training hair salon, hair and beauty classroom, learning resource centre, healthcare training room, and 16 general teaching classrooms.
Richard Riley, Associate Director at McBains commented: “It’s been a privilege to play a part in delivering such a transformative project for South Staffordshire College and the town of Tamworth. The new campus not only provides state-of-the-art facilities for students but also plays a key role in regenerating the town centre as part of the Future High Streets Fund programme. This has been a highly collaborative effort between the College, Tamworth Borough Council, and the wider project team, and we’re incredibly proud to see students now benefiting from this modern and inspiring environment”.
This project has reduced the size of the existing estate by c.3,600m2, improving efficiency by consolidating provision previously spread across the Tamworth and Torc sites onto one town centre site, transforming the utilisation of the estate from a very low 20% utilisation rate to a sector leading 45%+ utilisation rate. The relocation will help make the College more inclusive by relocating to the heart of the local community (economically and socially) at the centre of the regeneration of the town.
McBains inter-disciplinary teams have been involved in the development of the design from the end of RIBA Stage 2 for services including C&S engineering, M&E engineering, cost management, project management and principal designer services delivering planning and up to tender stage. Post contract McBains provided project and cost management alongside client monitoring services for M&E engineering and contractor-novated services for C&S engineering.
