PLANS for the new home of the South Central Institute of Technology in Bletchley have received the green light from councillors.
Staff and students are already hard at work in existing buildings on Milton Keynes College’s Bletchley campus but the new structure will provide a purpose-built home for the new digital centre.
The plans by Milton Keynes College Group entail extensive refurbishment and extension of the Andrew Peck building on the junction of Sherwood Drive and Selwyn Grove, close to the entrance to Bletchley rail station. It will provide providing high-quality learning environments, designed to be welcoming and inclusive.
The new building will have its main entrance on the south side of the building for better access to the rest of the campus and nearby transport hubs. The existing building will connect to the new extension via a glazed wall link and public areas inside the extension include a café and rooms for community use and events.
SCIoT principal Alex Warner pictured right said: “We are really delighted that the plans have been approved. The SCIoT is already going at full steam ahead – we already have in excess of 500 learners – but the new building will give us even greater opportunity to educate and train people in those vital tech skills that are so desperately needed by business.
“We are now more confident than ever than we can realise our ambitions to inspire digital futures”
The plans have been partly shaped by feedback from a virtual planning consultation, hosted in May by the college and engineering consultants Tetra Tech. Work is under way and the SCIoT expects to welcome more than 1,000 students a year once the site is complete.
