New college teaching centre for stables

A Herefordshire college plans to create a new centre for sustainable technology in a currently “dilapidated” building.

Herefordshire and Ludlow College is seeking planning permission to create a dedicated teaching space for low carbon technology in a former stables block at its Holme Lacy campus southeast of Hereford.

Though apparently still in use, the two-storey east stables “are in a dilapidated state which demands significant attention as it is critically affecting the safety, usability and perceived quality of the learning environment”, a statement with the application says.

At present the building is draughty, damp, unsafe, poorly insulated and has a corrugated asbestos roof which needs replacing, it explains.

If the proposal is approved, the ground floor would become a teaching space and the first floor, with exposed brickwork and services, giving it “an industrial aesthetic”.

Beneath a new insulated steel roof with clear “rooflights” and solar panels, the first floor would become a workshop.

The application says the project will “enhance the setting” of the adjacent Bower House, a grade II listed 17th-century farmhouse which houses the campus reception area.

The college has already begun refurbising the west stables building on the campus, again to create a teaching space for low-carbon technology.

Comments on the new planning application, numbered 231292, can be made until June 16.