News

Official Opening of the Kingsland Skills Institute - [15-05-2007]

Today see's the official opening of the brand new Skills Institute in Bedfordshire by Dave Anderson MP, PPS to Bill Rammell Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education. The £2 million Kingsland Skills and Enterprise Centre at Houghton Regis has been funded by the East of England Development Agency's Investing in Communities fund; with the project overseen by BLEDP.

It was praised by many of the official speakers at the launch as a fine example of collaborative working by The Learning Partnership, Bedfordshire County Council, Learning and Skills Council, The Chamber and Bedford and Barnfield Colleges . These speakers included local MP Andrew Selous (South West Beds), Cllr John Scott (Beds CC), Alison Webster (EEDA) and Heather Maggs (Chair of The Learning Partnership).

Billy Schwer, the Luton born former World Lightweight boxing champion, (pictured) gave an inspirational speech about how he came to realise the importance of learning after he had left school and retired from boxing. A Centre like this was much needed in this area.

The Kingsland Centre will provide the Hub for the Skills Institute, with spokes being developed across Bedfordshire and Luton. It is envisaged that this centre will provide much needed opportunities to skill and re-skill over a thousand people in the area, to improve their life chances and encourage the local economy to thrive.

The new Centre will include training, educational and skills development for the construction industry and sports treatments. It will also include five incubation units for new businesses while a nearby building has been refurbished to provide a sports treatment clinic and courses in conjunction with the FA. The construction centre is on course to be to be fully operational by July.

Jon Billington, IiC Manager at BLEDP said "This is a wonderful opportunity for the economy of Beds and Luton. It has taken a lot of hard work to get his far. But the really hard work begins now, persuading those without the skills to survive in the modern economy to use the Centre and be able to get much better jobs. I welcome the involvement of companies like Siemens Energy in the Centre, so that the skills acquired here will lead directly to new job opportunities for students."

<< News Menu