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WORK on the £24m state-of-the-art Wakefield College campus in Glass Houghton is due to start next month after college chiefs and developers signed final contracts.

The new learning academy, which will have glass curtain walling and a sloping roof with glass lighting, is being built on former colliery land and will be finished by October 2008.

The new centre – to be called The Skills Xchange – will replace the college’s Whitwood campus and will offer 14-19 year olds vocational courses such as engineering, construction, health and beauty in specially designed departments as well as classrooms and IT rooms.

Whitwood campus will stay open until the new building is complete and the first students are expected to start in January 2009.

Heather MacDonald, college principal, said: “The Skills Exchange will be a facility of which our district can be proud. It will serve learners right across Wakefield and beyond, and be an integral part of the area’s regeneration, in which the college has a key role to play.”

John Keyes, partner of project manager GVA Grimley’s strategic property consultancy team, added: “This is another exciting chapter in the development of Glass Houghton and the development will breathe new life into their substantial site.

“Work is now set to begin on this striking and iconic building.”

The academy – part of a project that will also see a second new campus in the centre of Wakefield - is being funded by the sale of the Whitwood site and a grant from the Learning and Skills Council.

Pontefract and Castleford Express - 05 April 2007