Grŵp Llandrillo-Menai (GLlM) have submitted a planning application to relocate the Coleg Menai Bangor Campus from the existing Ffriddoedd Road and Friars site to Parc Menai.
Under the plans the college would create a ‘lifelong learning zone and Centre of Excellence for the creative industries’ at Parc Menai to meet the future needs of learners and employers in north west Wales.
The project would bring together all of the existing Bangor-based Coleg Menai departments and administrative functions. It would also consolidate the Grŵp’s creative industries provision, to provide a Centre of Excellence in Creative and Digital Media with courses ranging from art and music technology, to games design and TV production all available on the same site.
A previous application which comprised both Tŷ Menai and adjoining Llwyn Brain application was withdrawn in 2019, when several departments, including engineering moved to Coleg Menai’s Llangefni site on Anglesey.
Despite being based at the Ffriddoedd site since the late 1950’s, urgent maintenance works to bring the “outdated” facilities up to current standards would not be cost effective.
According to the planning application, the present Campus facilities at Bangor were constructed and fitted-out in the 1960’s/70’s. The current buildings are of a poor and have already ‘significantly exceeded their original design lifespan’.
Given the 1960’s/70’s design the existing site will require considerable ongoing capital maintenance expenditure just to remain operational.
It is estimated that the existing Bangor Campus would require in the region of £18.17m of urgent maintenance in order to bring it up to present standards. However, even if the infrastructure of these present old buildings were repaired to modern standards, they would, according to the planning application, “remain unappealing and unimpressive 1960’s and 1970’s structures, on a sloping site that is inherently problematic to make suitable for disabled learners. As a result, it would be extremely difficult to change embedded perceptions about what College is capable of delivering and marketing it a destination of choice for their learners.”
The existing resources are configured across two separate sites on opposite sides of Ffriddoedd Road. In effect the busy Ffriddoedd Road runs through the middle of the overall Campus, giving rise to a number of obvious learner safety and learner safeguarding issues. The nature of the present spaces within these buildings, including the Grade II listing of the Friars buildings, mean they could not be adapted to become “fit-for-purpose”, in particular when set against the need to reconfigure to remove duplication and to meet modernised future skills requirements of priority industry sectors.
The poor condition of the existing Bangor Campus buildings means that there is an urgency to progress with a solution by 2022.
Engineering and technology has relocated to Llangefni in January 2019, into a separate strategic cluster orientated towards the Energy & Power industry. This has already reduced the overall number of students attending Bangor by about 30% (or 1,460 students). Bangor numbers are set to fall by a further 250 students when the Bangor Gas Centre moves into a new building currently under construction at Llangefni.
The planning application site includes the building of Tŷ Menai located along Ffordd Penlan to the west of Ffordd y Parc which is the main road which leads through Parc Menai. The site also includes the associated external areas which would provide associated car parking. The application site includes an area of land directly to the north of Ffordd Penlan to enable to construction of an access road for coach parking and drop-off.
