Business

Plans submitted for new £45 million Craigavon campus at Southern Regional College

An image of what the new £45 million Southern Regional College campus in Craigavon will look like once completed
An image of what the new £45 million Southern Regional College campus in Craigavon will look like once completed An image of what the new £45 million Southern Regional College campus in Craigavon will look like once completed
By Gareth McKeown

PLANS for a new £45 million education campus in Craigavon have been submitted by Southern Regional College (SRC).

If approved the new state-of-the-art campus is set to create hundreds of jobs and is part of a £95 million investment across the campuses in Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, all due for completion in 2020.

SRC has already secured planning consent for the two new campuses in Armagh and in Banbridge, both of which are being built on existing sites. The Craigavon development, which will be located next to the recently-approved £30 million Craigavon Leisure Centre, will replace the Lurgan and Portadown campuses.

It is hoped that the new Craigavon site will help transform education provision across the region, providing world-leading skills training and courses designed to support local and regional job creation and employment opportunities in key economic areas, including science, manufacturing, engineering, ICT, hospitality and tourism.

SRC chief executive, Brian Doran said the new Craigavon campus will provide a "modern and innovative environment" for learning.

“A concept first conceived in 2009, this Craigavon campus represents an enormous opportunity to support current and future generations to achieve their full potential in a fast-changing world that demands commercially-focused flexible skills, knowledge and training."

"It will also provide a modern and innovative environment that will enhance business and educational collaboration, support the delivery of new and exciting learning opportunities from entry level through to degree level and be used to strengthen our partnership with community- based organisations," he added.

The planning submission is the result of extensive pre-application engagement and dialogue with a wide range of local and regional stakeholders, community groups and residents.

Southern Regional College is the largest Further and Higher Education College outside of Belfast in the north. The college has over 27,000 enrolments and 800 staff, with a total of six campuses in Armagh, Banbridge, Kilkeel, Lurgan, Newry and Portadown.