Four projects funded by the Greater Lincolnshire LEP have continued to progress in recent months.

Grantham is to get a new multi-screen cinema incorporating a university centre. The building will house a new centre for the University of Lincoln helping to meet current and future demand for highly skilled jobs and workers. 

Last month a handover followed a formal topping out ceremony celebrating completion of the work on the building’s shell. 

The LEP contributed towards South Kesteven District Council’s flagship project with a £2m grant via the Government’s Growth Deal towards the build cost and fit-out.  

Our Chair Ursula Lidbetter MBE commented: “The LEP is pleased to be contributing £2m through its Growth Deal programme towards this transformative project, which will create a new University Technology and Innovation Centre to serve south Lincolnshire and beyond.

“It will provide an anchor and access for south Lincolnshire higher levels skills development and a link for local businesses to a highly successful university.”

In Scunthorpe the University Campus North Lincolnshire project has come a step closer after we secured a £2.3m funding package through the Skills Capital Investment Fund.

The new campus will welcome its first cohort of students in September at the Civic Centre on Ashby Road in Scunthorpe, marking the first part of the University Campus project.

North Lindsey College will develop the former council building to create an innovation hub where higher-level education will be offered across a range of subjects and levels, including post-graduate courses.

Initially, courses on offer will focus on business and leadership, innovation, engineering manufacturing and health-related programmes.

LEP Director Ruth Carver said: “This £2.3 million investment gives the go-ahead to an impressive University Centre in Scunthorpe that will further support businesses and learners in the marine, manufacturing and offshore industries. 

“The partnership between the University of Lincoln and North Lindsey College will develop hi-tech training and education as part of a major drive to boost the areas skills base. It will help create more than 1800 new learners and 82 new curriculum/training courses, and the centre will work with up to 50 employers to make sure skills delivery is meeting the needs of both business and education.”

New College Stamford has opened a new Digital Skills Centre as part of its latest cutting-edge refurbishment after it received funding from the LEP via the Growth Deal.

The £1 million state-of-the-art facility has been built to replicate a professional, working agency environment and is kitted out with the latest smart technology including cyber security, data modelling programming and virtual simulation software.

Local employers, councillors and governors joined college staff and students to formally open the new centre in January. To mark the occasion, a ribbon was cut by Allison Sunley, the Chair of the college’s Board of Governors.

Ursula Lidbetter commented: “The LEP is delighted to be supporting digital skills development for Greater Lincolnshire. This new centre underpins all of the priorities identified in the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Strategic Economic Plan, not least because of increasing automation and the endemic use of digital data within all sectors of business.”

Meanwhile the £21 million medical school proposed by the University of Lincoln has been given the green light and will become the first of its kind in Lincolnshire.

City of Lincoln Council has approved plans for the new building, where teaching will be delivered in a partnership with the University of Nottingham.

The school will be built next to the existing science laboratories, the Janet Lane-Claypon Building, and opposite the University’s Isaac Newton Building on the southern edge of the main Brayford Pool campus.

The landmark facility will help to tackle the shortage of health staff across Lincolnshire and teach the next generation of medical students.

The University of Lincoln and University of Nottingham were successful last year in their joint bid to establish a new medical school for Lincolnshire.

Funding has been secured for an initial 80 first year undergraduate places in September 2019 with a further 80 per intake in subsequent years.

The University of Lincoln was awarded a provisional allocation of £5m from the Greater Lincolnshire LEP's Growth Deal in January 2017 to help develop the Lincoln Medical School. Construction work is scheduled to start in late summer 2019.