Network Rail puts halted HS2 college site back on track

Few trained at the pricey, purpose-built national college building before it closed

Few trained at the pricey, purpose-built national college building before it closed

A failed railway college built to train HS2 workers will be resurrected as a Network Rail education centre after standing empty for a year.

The hangar-sized building in Doncaster’s Lakeside area was one of two branches of the National College for High Speed Rail which opened in 2017.

It was plagued by low student numbers and stopped training apprentices and higher education students in July 2023 despite multi-million-pound government bailouts, a rebrand as the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) and a takeover by Birmingham University in 2021.

The Doncaster site, reportedly built for £26 million with central and local government funding, has been empty since NCATI formally wound down late last year.

A second branch of the college in Birmingham, also purpose-built, was given to a neighbouring school academy trust specialising in engineering last year.

Operational and leadership training

Network Rail told FE Week the Doncaster site, leased by freehold owner City of Doncaster Council, would be used as a training venue for operational and leadership training.

According to planning documents, the 7,200sqm building’s three storeys include a large workshop area, a 38m crane for hoisting trains and equipment, short railway lines, classrooms and staff offices.

Its design “reflected the philosophy and working practices of HS2” with a capacity of up to 1,000 students and 100 staff.

Doncaster Council’s elected mayor Ros Jones said the move was “great news” for the city and the UK’s rail industry, and added it was “fitting” Doncaster would continue to have a national rail hub given its historical importance to the industry.

Post-16 training rule

Ownership of the building reverted to Doncaster Council, the original owner of the land, when NCATI was dissolved.

However, the property’s freehold includes a Department for Education-stipulated covenant that requires a “significant majority” of the building to be used for post-16 education or the development of training and skills until 2043.

Doncaster Council said the covenant “significantly restricts” the building’s uses, with potential providers either unable to afford the rent or not in a position to take over the whole building.

Network Rail and Doncaster Council both declined to confirm the terms of their 25-year lease agreement, claiming the information was commercially confidential.

However, council papers reveal an income target of £150,000 was set for 2024-25, increasing to £300,000 in 2025-26.

Birmingham branch

Aston University Engineering Academy (AUEA), a specialist school for years 9 to 13, took over the Birmingham campus when NCATI closed in late 2023.

Slightly smaller than the Doncaster centre, the West Midlands branch also contained a specialist workshop with railway tracks and classrooms across three storeys.

The academy’s executive principal Daniel Locke-Wheaton said the building was also used as a “dedicated centre of national excellence” for T Level learners and featured a jewellery training centre.

Its upper floors will become a specialist sixth form, Aston University’s Mathematics School, which is due to open next September.

Unlike in Doncaster, freeholder Birmingham City Council has leased the site to AUEA at peppercorn rent, FE Week understands.

Council documents from 2016 show Birmingham Council suffered a “revenue loss” when it donated the site, which it ran as a science park.

Site preparation costs doubled to £3 million when the council discovered ground contaminated with lead, asbestos and hydrocarbons.

How much did the buildings cost?

The Doncaster site is understood to have been funded by the former Department for Business and Trade and several local authorities. According to a Doncaster Council cabinet report its construction cost £26 million.

FE Week has been unable to confirm the cost of the Birmingham branch, though the total budget for the two sites was understood to be around £40 million.

The Department for Education declined to confirm the final bill for the colleges.

Other costs to the public purse included a £2.8 million loan from HS2 Ltd which has been written off.

National colleges hit and miss

The high-speed rail college was one of five ‘national colleges’ set up in the 2010s with £80 million of government funding.

After issues with student enrolments, resulting in government bailouts of at least £12 million, only two still operate: the National College for Nuclear and Ada National College for Digital Skills.

The National College Creative Industries was dissolved in 2019 and reformed as a joint venture between Access Creative College and South Essex College.

The National College for Onshore Oil and Gas was announced in 2014, with a headquarters planned in Blackpool, but was dissolved seven years later partly due to a ban on fracking.

The HS2 project has been dogged by repeated spending cuts, including the scrapping of the line from Birmingham to Manchester by former prime minister Rishi Sunak last year.

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