Work has begun on a major refurbishment of a Leicester College campus in the city centre. The £3 million project will see a block of the Abbey Park campus in Painter Street undergo a complete interior redesign and updated facilities.

The Abbey Park campus is home to Leicester College's engineering and technology centre where the work will take place. It is hoped that the upgrade will offer future engineers an improved learning setting with the latest, state-of-the-art equipment.

This includes a robotics and industrial control lab, where students will be able to develop their programming skills, learn about modern manufacturing equipment and processes, and also learn about microcontrollers - which are used to control everything from washing machines to spacecraft. A new pneumatics and hydraulics lab is also being created as part of the major revamp.

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Students will also have a new computer suite with the latest design software as well as additional facilities to existing laboratories. The current work to the Abbey Park campus will cost more than £3 mllion, towards which the Department for Education has provided more than £1 million.

Leicester College - which offers a range of technical, vocational and higher education qualifications - secured £5,395,187 from the Department of Education's Office for Students to deliver the three projects across its Leicester campuses last year. It is expected that the projects will increase the college's number of higher education students from a current average of 375 a year to more than 700 by September next year.

The upgrade to the 'B block' of the campus is due to be completed by Autumn 2023 and will be closed to staff and students for the duration of the work. Students will be taught in other buildings at Abbey Park Campus until it reopens.

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