Gateshead construction company Tolent has won the contract to build the £15m Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy in Sunderland.
Tolent has been awarded the contract to design and construct the Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy (HICSA), which will be led by Sunderland College in moves to train local people to create innovative factory-built new homes, the first of which will be assembled at Riverside Sunderland. Planning consent for the development was granted in March and it is hoped that work will be able to start later this year when the technical design is complete.
Once complete, the facility – based at Sheepfolds on the site of the existing goods shed on the corner of Hay Street – will have a number of education and industry partners including the Ministry of Building Innovation and Education (MOBIE), which is led by Washington-born TV architect, George Clark.