Harrogate College to get new £20 million campus to tackle town's skills gap in hospitality and care sectors

The new state-of-the-art campus at Hornbeam Park will include:

A mock hospital ward.

A new children’s nursery.

A range of digital technology facilities to enable the college to take its technical training expertise to the next level.

Harrogate College Principal Danny Wild said the multi-million pound investment, the bulk of which comes from the Department for Education’s Further Education Capital Transformation Fund, would specifically address the key areas where local businesses are struggling with recruitment.

These include health and social care, construction, digital, hospitality and sustainable technologies such as retrofitting.

“The new building will be very much about meeting the skills needs of North Yorkshire, especially in areas where we know businesses are currently struggling with gaps - such as health and social care, construction, digital, hospitality and sustainable technologies like retrofitting.

“We will be focused on working with North Yorkshire Council, and continuing our strong collaborative work with other local colleges and businesses, to develop these in-demand skills.

"Our new campus will put us in a great place to do so, and to deliver on those new technical qualifications - principally T Levels - that are becoming increasingly popular as other qualifications are phased out.”

So important is the transformative rebuild at Harrogate College, two education specialists from North Yorkshire Council visited Hornbeam Park last week to hear about our rebuild plans and how they will help tackle the county's skills gaps.

Executive Member for Education, Learning and Skills, Councillor Annabel Wilkinson, and Assistant Director for Education and Skills, Amanda Newbold, heard more about the project from Mr Wild.

The guests were also given a quick tour and learned about how the college’s specialist educational needs and disability (SEND) provision is helping, through a supported internship programme, to gain work for students at Harrogate District Hospital.

Coun Wilkinson said: “This is a really exciting project. I think students will have many new opportunities with the new-build.”