Hopes high for funding approval to ensure £14 million green centre opens next year at Peterborough College

Hopes that a multi-million pound Centre for Green Technology at Peterborough College will open next year hinge on a successful bid to the Department for Education (DfE), it has been revealed.

College leaders say they are confident the £4 million application to the DfE will be successful and will enable the new centre to open in October next year – just a month later than originally planned.

A spokesperson for the college said: “We are confident the DfE will decide in our favour.

"But it will mean the project will be delivered in October next year rather than September.”

However, it is far from the worst case scenario which was outlined to members of the Peterborough Towns Fund board last March.

Its minutes, which have only recently been published, show it had been feared that the need to fill a funding gap would mean the Centre for Green Technology would not open until 2025.

The minutes state that the college had been told by its contractor that ‘the cost of the project has increased’.

The minutes add: “There remains a substantial gap with the funding. They are now looking at January 2025 for the project to be delivered and open to students.”

A college spokesperson said: “That was the worst case scenario.”

The college already has £4.8 million in funding – including £1.9 million from the Peterborough Towns Fund and £2.471 from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority– plus £6 million of cash reserves. She said the college was confident the DfE would provide the £4 million of funding that still needs to be found.

It brings the total cost of the project to £14.8 million – up from £12.5 million originally envisaged.

Planning approval for the centre was granted by Peterborough City Council in April.

The 2,300 square metres building, which will be three storeys high, will deliver an innovative curriculum to the workforce of tomorrow around careers in sustainable construction and electric vehicle manufacturing.

It will feature an electrical workshop, engineering lab, building services engineering lab, a plumbing workshop and an engineering and motor vehicles lab as well as classrooms, offices and breakout spaces.