NI construction firm, Farrans, has contributed funding to Anglian Water's new Green Skills Academy at the College of West Anglia in Wisbech.

The funding from Farrans forms part of a £2 million investment from the water company and other alliance partners. The project has also secured £2 million from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority's Recycled Local Growth Fund and an additional £200,000 from the College of West Anglia.

Launched during Business in the Community’s (BiTC) 'Seeing is Believing' event in the town, the £4 million training centre will serve as a crucial hub for locals interested in environmental careers. It will operate from a new sustainable building equipped with solar panels and rainwater harvesting technology to minimise water consumption.

It is expected to open its doors for teaching on initial courses in sustainability and wildlife conservation in September 2024, with a full offering to be made available at the new building from 2025. Once a thriving town, Wisbech has struggled with sustained underinvestment since the industrial revolution – with a national index placing the town in the bottom 10% nationally for four of the top eight deprivation indicators.

The newly established Green Skills Academy is designed to create a skilled workforce proficient in environmental practices. Skills such as carbon reduction and conservation will play a pivotal role in undertaking infrastructure and environmental projects essential for supporting resilience against escalating climate change impacts in the future. This initiative holds particular significance for Anglian Water, which has outlined a £9 billion investment plan in the East of England from 2025 to 2030. To achieve this ambitious agenda, the company aims to hire thousands of new employees, including potentially up to 800 apprentices, focusing heavily on green job opportunities.

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Jason Tucker, Director of Strategic Delivery & Commercial Assurance for Anglian Water, said: "Wisbech is at the heart of our region, so it was an ideal location to see how we could make a positive difference to the social and environmental prosperity of the area. But that’s not the only reason it’s so important. The Fens are also crucial to the East of England – and the entire country – for their agricultural output. With half the UK's most fertile agricultural land and producing a fifth of the nation’s crops and a third of its vegetables, the Fens are widely considered the country’s breadbasket. Our work in the town over the last ten years has now evolved to explore how we need to overcome challenges at a landscape scale to deliver a sustainable future.

"We've long prioritised social prosperity alongside environmental outcomes, especially through our work in Wisbech with BiTC and through the Future Fens project. This new training school will help provide a pathway for local people, especially those at the start of their career, to get involved in really important work that will benefit our region’s environment for years to come. It’s not only great to be able to provide high-quality employment opportunities in an area where there are so few – but it’s also crucial that we invest in these skills now, so that we can deliver the much-needed environmental improvements that will build our region’s resilience to climate change."

David Pomfret, Principal of the College of West Anglia, said: "I am delighted we have now secured external funding to progress this important project. Skills are vital to the socio-economic prosperity of the area and this centre will enable us to meet local green skills needs whilst providing great career opportunities for local people. We are grateful to the Combined Authority for having the vision to fund this exciting facility and excited to build on our strategic partnership with the Anglian Water and its Alliances, through their transformational investment."

The training centre in Wisbech sits alongside several other projects to encourage recruitment, particularly of early careers candidates, across the wider East of England. The water company’s alliances already work with the College of West Anglia on its Collaborative Skills Programme, which gives local people an opportunity to access apprenticeships with Anglian Water Alliance partners.

Similar collaborative skills hubs have been established in Grimsby, Milton Keynes, and Bury St Edmunds. This initiative compliments Anglian Water’s @one Alliance's existing training school, which equips employees with the necessary skills to efficiently execute the water company’s capital investment projects.