A new building focused on digital skills is to be built at City College Norwich.
The college has been awarded £6.1m by New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for a new building focused on skills for the digital industries.
The total investment in the project will be £9.1m, with City College Norwich contributing to the fund.
The multimillion pound grant is set to boost to digital skills teaching and create new jobs at City College Norwich.
The building has been given the working title ‘The Digi-Tech Factory’.
It will be home to a wide range of full- and part-time courses, as well as apprenticeship learning, from creative media, to software and programming, and ‘hard’ digital skills relating to networking, infrastructure development, electronics and automated manufacturing
Designed by Coffey Architects, the new building is designed to be an environment for digital technology, engineering and design courses.
Subject to planning permission being granted, the three-floor building will be situated adjacent to the Creative Arts Building on City College Norwich’s Ipswich Road campus.
The existing Southwell Building will be demolished to make way for the new build.
“We are thrilled that our plans for an inspirational new building for digital skills can move forward, with a view to opening the Digi-Tech Factory in 2020-21,” said Corrienne Peasgood, principal of City College Norwich.
“The Digi-Tech sector is growing more than twice as fast as the wider economy, so it is essential that we have the right facilities to meet the growing demand for digital skills.
“This is great news for our students and for employers.
“We will continue to work very closely with our employer partners to make sure our expanding digital skills provision rises to this important opportunity for students, for apprentices and for the Norfolk and Suffolk economy as a whole.”