New College To Inspire Students

12 September 2011, 06:00 | Updated: 12 September 2011, 16:13

Detailed plans for the proposed £22.2m Stanground College will be submitted to Peterborough City Council today.

The plans will then be checked over by the Authority's planning officers over the next couple of months.

If approved, work could start on the new building as early as next spring (2012) and be completed by September 2013.

Cllr John Holdich, Cabinet member for Education, Skills and University told Heart "This is an exiting milestone for everyone connected with Stanground College and is a further step towards the new buildings which are so desperately needed. The new college premises will transform learning for existing and future pupils."

Acting Principal Ali Story's spoken to Heart, and told us it'll be one of the new generation of colleges where it's been designed around inspiring the future students, rather than "just" being a building in which to study: "Walking into there as a young person to think 'I'm here now for the next seven years, what am I going to achieve?, What facilities will there be for me?'

Ali added: "We'll have practice rooms for music, sprung-floors for performaces, brand new IT and science facilities, it's really uplifting".

The new college should also improve grades, as currently a large proportion of the annual budget goes on maintaining the existing 40 year-old building.

Ali Story told Heart "That funding could be going into more teachers, reducing class sizes, buying new equipment - too much of the current budget is going on just keeping the building open."