A New College: In Bexley, For Bexley
Thank you for taking the time to find out more about our exciting proposals for a new Bexley College in the heart of Erith.
Bexley College is planning to move from its existing site on Tower Road in Belvedere to a new state of the art learning facility at Walnut Tree Depot Road in Erith town centre.
The College has been in the local area for over 100 years, including 40 years at the Tower Road site, providing high quality education and courses for post 16 year olds.
The current site has unsustainable maintenance costs and the current teaching spaces are not flexible enough for the modern curriculum that we want to deliver. We believe that a new college in Erith will not only lead to further improvements in the educational offer for local students, it will ensure the college’s future in the Borough is secured, as well as aid in the continuing regeneration of Erith town centre.
Due to the fact that public funding is significantly constrained for the Further Education sector, there will be no significant capital funding from the Government for the foreseeable future for a new building. Bexley College has therefore formed a new partnership with Barratt Homes and construction company Osborne to deliver the new college and redevelop its current Tower Road site for residential housing.
The sale of the Tower Road site and the development of new housing will ultimately fund the new college, together with small capital grants.
Your views
We are currently in the process of developing our proposals for the new college and the proposed housing at Tower Road.
During this time we have been proactive in engaging with the local community. Working with our development partners, we held 3 public exhibition events in July 2011 for residents to view the proposals for both the new college and Tower Road. We have also attended local resident group meetings, including the Erith Town Forum. We have so far had very positive feedback from the local community and have already taken on board a number of suggestions from residents.
Below you can view the exhibition we displayed to the public in July. The exhibition sets out more details about the proposals including:
· The reasons behind our move
· The designs of the new college building
· The new facilities that will be on offer
· Arrangements for transport and parking
· The environmental aspects of the scheme
We plan to submit the final proposals for the new college and Tower Road to Bexley Council later this year and would welcome your feedback.
To leave your comments please use the online feedback form below – Your comments are important to us and will be carefully considered before we submit our applications.
If you need any further information please contact us via Lucy Holbrook on
bexleycollege@connectpa.co.uk or telephone on 0207 592 9592
