By Julian Whittle

Last updated at 11:07, Saturday, 30 January 2010

A £10 million redevelopment of Carlisle College is set to open in the autumn of next year.

City councillors agreed yesterday to grant planning consent once minor technical issues have been sorted out.

The further education college will then demolish two older buildings dating from the 1950s and 1960s.

In their place will be a two-storey structure with glazed atrium along Strand Road and a main entrance facing Compton Street.

This will complement the three-storey college building fronting Victoria Place, which opened in 2006.

The scheme also provides a campus garden, two smoking shelters, a sub-station and car park off Hartington Street.

College principal Moira Tattersall was delighted with the outcome.

She said: “We are on a tight timescale because we’ve had significant delays because of funding.

“The aim is to have the new building open for September 2011.”

Planning officer Angus Hutchinson advised the development control committee to approve the plans.

The council received two objections from residents of Hartington Street.

One worry was that the car park and garden might become a magnet for drinkers and drug addicts when the college is closed.

There was a concern too that smoking shelters facing Hartington Place would overlook homes opposite but the college has agreed to screen them.

The modern Victoria Place building houses electrical, plumbing, engineering, motor-vehicle and IT courses.

A £30m plan to replace the remaining buildings had to be dropped after the Learning and Skills Council withdrew funding last June.

Since then, the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Cumbria County Council have stepped in with £9m to allow a more modest revamp.

The scheme now approved in principle retains the 1970s building north of Strand Road as an administration block.

It will be refurbished and the bridge linking it to the rest of the campus re-clad.

The new building will house a catering kitchen and training restaurant, a café/student hub, 14-19 welcome space, student shop, and salons for hair and beauty students.

There will also be a facility for students with learning difficulties, and general teaching accommodation.

Despite a reduction in floorspace of 80,000sq ft compared with the existing buildings, the college is confident that it can cope.

First published at 09:03, Saturday, 30 January 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk