Students enjoy tour of Leeds City College’s new £4.5m teaching block

Students have been given a first glimpse of Leeds City College’s new £4.5 million teaching block at its Printworks Campus.

The two-floor building, which will provide nine new classrooms, two IT labs, a learning zone and more, is nearing completion and expected to open within the next few months.

The block will be aimed primarily at engineering, digital and IT students – some of whom have just enjoyed a guided tour of the under-construction facilities. 

Electrical installation course students donned hard hats and other protective gear as they were shown around the property by Site Manager for offsite modular building specialists Premier Modular, Phil Dunne.

Real-world lessons from the building site

Mr Dunne told them: “Not everything can be put into a drawing or thought of in advance. People make mistakes and there are always a lot of things you have to solve on-site – that comes with experience.

“Every building’s different and different problems come up with each one.”

The students gained lots of insights into the rigorous standards of a modern building site as they were shown the inner workings of a lift shaft, an electrical switch room, classrooms and bathrooms.

The block is being built to high sustainability standards so they were also able to inspect examples of green technology, including air source heat pumps and EV charging points for its electric vehicle parking spaces.

Electrical Installation Course Leader Christopher Lang, from the college’s School of Engineering, linked what the students were seeing in action back to their studies.

He told them: “This is an opportunity to get that experience of being on-site, of seeing what PPE you get and to take in the sights and sounds. That’s such an important part of being able to contextualise projects.”

A ‘fantastic’ new building that will boost teaching capacity

Principal of Printworks Campus, Cheryl Smith, said: “We are delighted to see this fantastic new building nearing completion, and are looking forward to welcoming students in and showing them around.

“This scheme, overseen by the Project Lead Kamil Asghar, has been 18 months in the making. The new facilities will enable us to significantly increase our capacity to deliver the skills training that our young people, and region, need.”

The new building, once completed, will give the campus – whose main building suffered a serious, but thankfully contained, accidental fire in December – a welcome boost as it forges ahead during 2023.

Based on Hunslet Road, Printworks Campus delivers a wide range of vocational and academic courses through Leeds City College’s Schools of Business, Digital & IT, Engineering, Hair, Beauty and Media Makeup, and Travel, Food and Drink.