Decision details

Following Cabinet approval on 10th March 2021, Crawley Borough Council signed a Heads of Terms for the Crawley Towns Fund on 24th March 2021 with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, DLUHC), confirming that the Government would provide Crawley with up to a total of £21.1 million from the Towns Fund, subject to submission of robust project business cases.

The business case summary for the Invest in Skills for Crawley project has recently been endorsed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. This follows Cabinet approval of the Crawley Towns Fund project business cases on 16th March 2022 and Full Council approval on 30th March 2022 of the capital programme allocations for the Crawley Towns Fund Projects.

The overall objective of the Invest in Skills for Crawley project is to deliver a programme of investment in infrastructure for vocational skills training and higher education to benefit local residents. More specifically, the project involves the development of venues, specialist equipment and facilities with the appropriate quality specifications to accommodate the design and delivery of new training programmes in green tech construction, professional services, engineering and digital. These will empower Crawley’s local workforce and boost local businesses in these sectors by helping them to locally recruit people with the correct skills.

The Invest in Skills for Crawley programme will comprise three principal schemes:
1. Infrastructure and facilities for new university-level training provision.
2. Additional F.E. infrastructure to enable Level 2 and 3 training pathways for Crawley residents’ access into employment in the above sectors.
3. A green construction skills hub venue equipped with green construction skills training facilities.
The programme aims to create a compendium of new vocational and higher education training interventions.

The amount of Towns Fund monies allocated to this project, as approved by Full Council is: £4.5 million.

A legal agreement with Chichester College Group has been drawn up through the Council’s Legal Services Team and sets out the delivery of this work, in accordance with the project business case and guidance from DLUHC.

The decision to approve the funding agreement was taken following consultation with Atif Nawaz, Deputy Leader of the Council & Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Development.

On 10 August 2023, the Head of Economy and Planning under generic delegation 3, took the decision to approve the Council signing of the Grant Funding Agreement for the DLUHC Funded Project: Invest in Skills for Crawley (1B) between Crawley Borough Council and Chichester College Group. This allows Chichester College Group to progress delivery of the project through Crawley College.

Not implementing this decision would see Chichester College Group unable to deliver this project in adherence with the requirements agreed with DLUHC and the Council unable to fulfil part of the aforementioned Towns Fund Heads of Terms.