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Bridgwater College is set to receive more than £4 million in funding to launch the South West Energy Skills Centre, a specialist nuclear skills training centre.
The 'Energy Centre' will be the South West flagship delivery centre for the National Skills Academy for Nuclear and will provide high quality specialist training facilities in science, engineering and specialist construction to meet industry standards for a skilled, competent and safe nuclear workforce.
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and the South West RDA have confirmed that they will be investing £2.25 million and £2 million respectively. This will complement the £3.6m from Bridgwater College and Sedgemoor District Council’s provision of land.
Malcolm Gillespie, Regional Director for the LSC South West, said: "This is significant news for the region and will bring a wide range of opportunities to help the economy prepare for the upturn by ensuring we have the right skills and training in place to support the nuclear industry.
"As with other sectors, we are seeing that the skills academy programme is successful in bringing together employers and Government to provide the world class skills that our economy needs."
The National Skills Academy for Nuclear create, develop and promote world class skills and career pathways to support a sustainable future for the UK nuclear industry. It brings together the very best quality providers with nuclear employers to develop and promote skills and training for the nuclear sector.
The RDA's investment in the Energy Skills Centre complements the £355,000 it has made in Bridgwater Challenge – a project, led by Sedgemoor District Council, to create a new vision and strategic framework for the regeneration of the town. The initiative identifies the Centre as one of a number of strategic projects which will act as a catalyst for the transformation of the town.
Magnox South Ltd has donated £200,000 of simulator equipment and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and EDF Energy are also supporting the project.
(CD/BMcC)
