£30 million college planned next to Black Country Living Museum

Plans to build the manufacturing and construction college on Tipton Road have been revealed and education leaders say it will support thousands of students by 2025.

The Black Country Institute of Transformational Technologies will be made up of two buildings on the museum’s overspill car park, and is being launched through a partnership between Dudley College and the University of Wolverhampton.

It is another sign of Dudley College’s ambition, with bosses also planning to submit a bid for the town’s former hippodrome site, as revealed by the Express & Star yesterday.

The outline planning application, submitted by the college, has been lodged with Dudley Council for a site off Tipton Road.

College bosses are bidding for cash from a £170m Government funding pot towards the building – which will also neighbour the new archives centre and sit over the road from new homes built on the former Guest Hospital site.

If it is given the go-ahead, it is proposed that by 2025 the facility will help 2,180 individuals ‘in new learning environments’, and1,510 on higher and degree-led apprenticeships.

The new higher education teaching facility would be built on the site which is currently used as an overspill car park for the Black Country Living Museum.

The outline plans show two four-storey buildings arrange around a pedestrianised public piazza with service access and car parking for disabled users.

A design and access statement states: “The outline planning application is for two new buildings for the newly proposed Black Country Institute of Transformational Technologies (BCIoTT) which will deliver level 4+ programmes in the transformational sectors of advanced manufacturing, modern construction methodologies and medical engineering.

"The new buildings will form the main campus at the newly established Innovation Park Dudley which also houses the Very Light Rail Innovation Centre (VLRIC), and associated incubation and innovation units.

There will also be a satellite centre at Marches Centre of Manufacturing and Technology (MCMT) in Bridgnorth, the BCIoTT will serve the Black Country and Marches LEPs.”

Dudley Council deputy leader David Vickers said the potential arrival of the training centre would be another boost for the town.

"It’s more investment for the town and anything that comes in like this is ground-breaking.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the town and I’m in full agreement with it.

“The college is going on leaps and bounds. I’ve been round it a few times and I’m really impressed with it.”