By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
Councillors have approved a major new college campus redevelopment at the second time of asking following a crucial site visit.
Mansfield District Council’s planning committee has backed West Nottinghamshire College’s £8.86m plans for its Chesterfield Road campus.
It comes two weeks after the same committee deferred making a decision on the plans and requested a visit to the site due to conservation concerns.
The site visit took place at 5pm on Monday (August 14) before the committee returned to the Civic Centre at 6pm to discuss the plans.
Now approved, the vacant and redundant School of Arts building will be demolished to make way for a large new education hub.
Its existing Portico entrance will be removed and used elsewhere on the site, while there will be alterations to the historic Ashfield House building.
Once complete, the replacement hub will feature a T-Levels centre for vocational courses aimed at addressing a skills gap across the Mansfield area.
It will also have a library, toilets, a ‘circulation space’, a plant room, 10 classrooms and additional teaching facilities.
It follows the college saying the existing facilities are “not fit for purpose” with the new project representing a “multi-million-pound investment” in Mansfield.
The project, which is being run by the college in partnership with the Labour-run council, is part-funded by £4.3m in Government Towns Fund cash.
And speaking in the planning meeting on Monday, Andrew Cropley, chief executive of the college, said: “If the brightest young people want to pursue a lucrative career, they have to leave the town and don’t come back.
“That leaves us with real challenges of deprivation, poor social mobility, poor health and so on.
“This project is right at the heart of turning that around and is key to the town’s improvement plan.
“We have to not only provide skilled young people and skilled adults, but we have to support local businesses to grow, be more competitive, enter new markets and offer great jobs for them to stay here.
“This project enables them to contribute … and this building is absolutely essential.”
He admitted there are “challenges” with the existing campus buildings and said “demolition is the only option” to bringing the new facilities forward.
And on the previous deferral, he added: “Delay is a real challenge for us now and this project is stressed.
“We need to move forward quickly.”
Councillors were broadly supportive of the plans after visiting the site but the main sticking point during the meeting was the School of Arts’ iconic Portico entrance.
The committee requested and approved a condition requiring the entrance to be retained and for all parts of it to be used across the developed campus.
Cllr Jack Stephenson (Lab), who represents Market Warsop and initially proposed the site visit at last month’s meeting, added: “I’m happy to accept the plans as they are.
“[This is] on the condition as much of the stone [from the Portico entrance] that isn’t to be kept in the plans is used elsewhere on the grounds, in whatever shape or form that might be.
“It could be they’re made into benches, kept as features – I’ll let designers do that – but my proposal is to retain as much of it that isn’t used in the application to be used on-site.”
