£77m college plan work under way

Work is now underway on the £77 million new Sandwell College development, with bosses announcing today that construction will start within the next two months.

Head of marketing at the college, Stephen Clarke said that work on clearing and preparing the site was ahead of schedule with piling cranes arriving this week.

The new building will cater for 10,000 students and will include a European-style piazza.

The existing three sites in High Street, West Bromwich, Pound Road in Oldbury and Crocketts Lane in Smethwick, will merge into one larger campus.

Work on the new campus, on Spon Lane, is being recorded 24/7 by a webcam mounted on the nearby Bond Wolfe building.

Mr Clarke said: "Progress on the new campus is going extremely well, and we are on schedule with all of the work so far.

"The piling rig to install the concrete foundations arrived on site on Monday and the public should be able to see foundations rising out of the ground in March.

"Tower cranes will be arriving in February to signal another big step forward."

The existing college site in West Bromwich has already been sold to Advantage West Midlands which is renting it back to the college.

The opening date for the college has been delayed by a year, following months of wrangling over funding.

To view the webcam footage visit http://skycam.sandwell. ac.uk/cgi-bin/questimage.html