Multi-million university campus to be built in Worksop town centre
and live on Freeview channel 276
The ‘state-of-the-art’ Bridgecourt Campus - located at the site of the old job centre on Bridge Place - will work hand-in-hand with Bassetlaw Hospital providing health sector training.
However courses will also be available in digital and IT, green technologies and engineering.
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Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith said the desperately-needed investment would provide a ‘brighter future for the people of Bassetlaw’.
Brendan - who helped Bassetlaw District Council secure its share in the Government’s £900 million Getting Building Fund for the project - told how the campus would help the district ‘keep its brightest and best’ while bringing new footfall and further investment to the struggling town centre.
He said: “In Bassetlaw as soon as people grow up they move away and don’t come back so with this we’re hoping to create not just training but jobs to keep our brightest and best.”
The centre will be run in partnership between Bassetlaw Hospital, Nottingham Trent University and the University of Derby – creating a health hub in the town.
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Delighted Brendan hopes the Bridgecourt campus will bring new life into the town centre - with some commuting in from Nottingham and Sheffield while a need for accommodation could kickstart the regeneration of old buildings such as those around the canal.
However the investment is also seen as a way of securing long-term investment in Bassetlaw Hospital.
Brendan added: “For the last 20-30 years people have worried about the hospital but this shows we’re expanding on it - it will enable us to create a health hub in Worksop.
“And because this is such a central location people coming in from the train station can just walk down the hill.”
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MP Brendan described feeling ‘pretty happy’ about the investment after Bassetlaw was unsuccessful in securing previous Government funding for small towns.
He said: “If we start bidding this way it will pave the way for more money later on and will probably help us develop and transform the town centre.”
Work on Bridgecourt Campus is expected to start ‘almost immediately’ and to be completed within a year.