Update on plans for Sunderland's Housing, Innovation and Construction Skills Academy

Councillors have praised the regeneration benefits a multi-million-pound facility aiming to train and upskill housebuilders will bring after hearing updated proposals for the site.

A planning application was initially approved in March 2022 for a Housing, Innovation and Construction Skills Academy (HICSA) in the Sheepfolds area of Sunderland.

The proposals included the “conversion, restoration and repurposing” of a former “engine shed” structure near Millennium Way in the Southwick ward, which was “previously derelict and unused”.

In addition, it included the construction of a link building and hybrid structure to create a ‘workshop’ for the HICSA.

An updated application went before the latest meeting of Sunderland City Council’s planning and highways committee (on Monday, April 8) seeking to make minor design changes to the approved development.

This included reducing the gross internal floor area from 4,600sqm to 4,195sqm, alterations to windows, doors and skylights, a new footpath, wider vehicle access and changes to green spaces, including new trees.

The proposals were unanimously approved by councillors, in line with recommendations from officers, who hailed the benefits of the work for the area.

Councillor Greg Peacock said: “That’s one of the main routes through to the football matches and walking past on a Saturday, with all the construction work that’s going on in that area, it does look like it’s improving the area.

“Restoring the existing buildings and keeping that look I think is fantastic, it does give that grounding to the history of the area without losing existing buildings, but also modernising with the new use.

“I was really impressed, and I think so were thousands of other people walking past, that it’s not just been decimated and levelled, we’re doing a good job to keep the existing buildings there.”

Meanwhile, councillor Iain Scott added he “fully welcomes” the development.

He said: “There’s some terrific regeneration going on around the Southwick area at present and eventually HICSA will provide… 50 full-time members of staff and an intake of up to 400 full-time students and 200 part-time students.

“That’s going to provide a massive skills influx to the city and again that’ll bolster existing industry that we have and further industry that will be coming to the city also.”

Planning documents note the council, Education Partnership North East and the Ministry of Building Innovation and Education (MOBIE) have worked together to develop plans for the development.

They add it will be “a groundbreaking facility that will educate, train and upskill local people to create innovative factory-built new homes”.

City council bosses previously said the plans would fit with the government’s levelling up agenda by creating more economic opportunities for people and businesses by enabling the area to ‘build its own’ homes.

The project was also given a funding boost from the government’s Levelling Up Fund which is expected to be used to support the gross cost of the HICSA project of more than £14million.

The physical HICSA development is to create double-height workshops, a social hub and a variety of learning and breakout spaces for students and staff, along with a restaurant and kitchen area.

Committee reports noted although the land is currently largely bound by industrial uses and buildings, the Riverside Sunderland Masterplan “seeks to redevelop and regenerate the local area and proposes residential development to the west and south of the application site”.