Green light for plan to develop college

Dec 14 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANS to redevelop St Helens College’s town centre campus have been given the go-ahead by the council’s planning committee.

The £60m redevelopment of the Brook Street campus will involve demolishing the majority of the existing buildings and creating 17,500 square meters of two, three and four storey structures and also refurbishing the former Smith Kline Beecham building, which is to be listed.

The college was founded in 1896 and now has 18,000 students and 700 student programmes. The first building of the modern college was built in 1959 and has evolved into the existing campus.

The town centre campus is one of three college sites.

Planning chairman Cllr Richard Ferry said: “The proposals for the redevelopment of the campus represent a positive and sustainable development which will significantly enhance the town centre.

“The development will help the college to build on its solid base by providing state of the art educational facilities and potentially widen its catchment area to attract an additional one per cent of students.”