Wirral Met College welcomed Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Andrew Gwynne with Angela Eagle MP to its Wirral Waters Campus on Thursday 17th May 2018. The MP and Shadow Secretary of State joined Principal Sue Higginson and Councillor Phil Davies, Leader of Wirral Council, to meet students and staff at the Wirral Waters Campus and during his tour, he was able to see first-hand the impact of the College’s substantial investment in this campus. The campus was the first key landmark to open on Wirral Waters, one half of the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone.
The Wirral Waters Campus is dedicated to developing the skills and qualifications of local people across Construction and the Built Environment, and provides excellent, industry-standard facilities, supporting students on study programmes and apprenticeships across a wide range of trades from brickwork, carpentry and joinery, electrical installation painting and decorating, plumbing & gas installation, to plastering.
Wirral Met is one of the top colleges in the North West of England, as evidenced by its recent Ofsted report rating the college as Good. The College is proud to develop the ‘pipeline of skills’ to provide employers investing in the region with a well trained workforce across the Wirral Waters development which will in turn improve the local economy.
Angela Eagle, MP for Wallasey, said “This is a fantastic facility for further education students in Wallasey and across the Wirral. It provides an opportunity for them to acquire the skills they need to get on in the job market and is a testament to the joint working of Wirral Met College and Wirral Council.
“This facility is all the more impressive when you consider the impact of the Government’s damaging policies to both local councils and further education. There has been a near 60% reduction of apprenticeships since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and Wirral Council will have to find £300million worth of cuts since 2010, just to deliver a balanced budget by 2020.
“Labour, however, is committed to a different path. We have said that we will give Local Government the funding it needs to reinstate important local services and establish a National Education Service, modelled on the NHS. This will give people access to high-quality education from the cradle to the grave. Both these measures will allow the positive change we have seen here, fully funded and repeated across the country.”
Cllr Phil Davies, leader of Wirral Council, said: “The shadow leadership and shadow Secretary of State have long encouraged local councils to play a more hands on role in protecting and providing services for local residents, so what better way to drive economic growth than using local workers and firms to regenerate Birkenhead and Wirral.
“We recently unveiled ambitious but realistic plans in this very college building to bring about the much needed regeneration of key areas in Wirral through the creation of the Wirral Growth Company.
“These are plans to generate community wealth and create thousands of new jobs and one of the key elements is the pledge to ‘hire local, buy local’ for 60% of Wirral Growth Company contracts and ensure local people are the first to benefit.
“As part of this we will formalise relations with Wirral Met College construction campus to create opportunities for skills development, training and apprenticeships for Wirral residents.”
Sue Higginson, Principal of Wirral Met said, “Our Campus was the first new building in Wirral Waters and this has become an icon for the construction skills required to develop Wirral’s ambitious plans for our region. Our role is to equip people with skills to fit them for careers and, in the case of Wirral Waters which is the largest planning bid in Europe, skills are at the heart of making this happen. I look forward to welcoming the development of Wirral Waters, so that we can progress our students into the jobs they are training for.”