Brooksby campus to be transformed with new Agri-Tech centre

The Department for Education is investing £18M in overhauling facilities for land-based students with SMB College Group.

The state-of-the-art Agri-Tech centre will feature equipment such as GIS software for field and yield mapping, virtual learning environments, purpose-built labs, drones and robotics to provide learning on new smart farming technologies.

Dawn Whitemore, principal and CEO of SMB College Group, said of the new development: “This is a truly transformational project for our Brooksby campus, and we are incredibly pleased to announce the beginning of construction works for our brand new Agri-Tech Centre.

"We have a rich heritage of delivering agricultural training for many generations and are very proud of our commitment to offering innovative, forward-thinking qualifications and facilities to train the workforce of the future.

“We’d like to extend our thanks to everyone who has been involved throughout the initial planning phases of this project, and we are excited to keep the community updated going forward as the project progresses.

"The support the college has received so far from the teams at the Department for Education and Gleeds has been exceptional, along with Tilbury Douglas who have secured the contract.”

With a brand new T-Level programme in Agriculture, Land Management and Production also launching at Brooksby from September, this is an exciting time for the college's land-based students.

The transformation project also comes in the wake of a series of pioneering sustainability projects already underway at the campus, which have been spearheaded by the Land-based Industries Teaching team and their students in recent years.

These exciting and impactful sustainability projects, which are still ongoing, include a regenerative agriculture/agroforestry project, the restoration of the River Wreake, and a tree planting scheme which has seen hundreds of trees planted across the 850-acre Brooksby estate.

As one of only 36 specialist LANDEX colleges in the country, SMB College Group’s Brooksby Campus has trained thousands of agricultural, environmental and land-based practitioners over many generations.

There’s still time to apply for SMB College Group’s land-based programmes starting this September – click HERE for details or to book a visit to a Brooksby Campus Open Day.