May 2023 sees the start of exciting work at Leicester College, as it embarks on major refurbishment work at the Abbey Park Campus.

The engineering and technology centre will be undergo a complete internal redesign to make way for new and updated facilities. This will enable students to learn with the latest equipment and technologies to set them on the path to their future career and support the local economy to upskill, and provide engineering expertise and skills and the future. Costing more than £3 million, the Department for Education has provided more than £1 million for the projects from T level capital grant funding.

As well as replacing and upgrading machinery and workshops, the new facilities will feature state of the art CNC (computer controlled) engineering and manufacturing equipment. This includes a robotics and industrial control lab, where students will be able to develop their programming skills, learn about modern manufacturing equipment and processes, and also discover about microcontrollers, which are used to control everything from washing machines to spacecrafts.

Additionally new facilities will be installed in several world class laboratories, that will develop skills in mechanical engineering, electronics design and development, mechanical science, and electrical measurement and testing.

Students will benefit from access to extra IT facilities in a new computerised suite that will feature the latest design software on upgraded computers.

Furthermore, students will be able to discover how the “brains” of many modern manufacturing and automated production lines work in the new pneumatics, hydraulics and PLC (programmable logic controllers) lab.

Tom Sewell, Regional Director at Stepnell, said: “Having worked consistently on projects within the education sector and with several currently ongoing in Leicester, we’re looking forward to working on our third project with Leicester College on the refurbishment of Abbey Park Campus to create an enhanced learning space that will educate the engineers of the future.”

Work is due to be completed by autumn 2023.