City council opens new learning hub in Beaumont Leys
A warm and welcoming place where people can meet and learn new skills has opened in Beaumont Leys in Leicester.
Further information
The city council has transformed a vacant building on Bishopdale Road into the Bishopdale Adult Learning Hub, providing local people with access to courses that will help prepare them for the workplace and improve their skills.
Following a £500,000 refurbishment that took six months to complete, the former nursery now benefits from brand new heating and lighting systems and houses two classrooms where adults will be able to improve their skills in English and maths, learn how to write a CV, or prepare for an interview by picking up useful presentation skills.
The new hub is also home to the Fosse Arts project and includes arts facilities, workshop spaces, potters’ wheels and kilns.
Complete beginners will be able to sign up for pottery classes or learn new drawing and painting skills as part of a series of ‘learning for leisure’ courses that will also be on offer at the hub.
Later this year, the outdoor space at the hub will be developed for gardening and environmental sustainability courses - and there are also plans for a community café and kitchen that will provide work experience opportunities for local people, while using food from local businesses that would otherwise go to waste.
City Mayor Peter Soulsby, who officially opened the new centre yesterday (Wednesday), said: “This new facility will make it much easier for people in Beaumont Leys and other parts of the city to acquire new skills and access new opportunities, but it will also provide an important meeting place for the whole community.
“This area has had very limited access to local adult learning opportunities in the past, so I’m very pleased that the city council has been able to provide these new facilities, which will give the local neighbourhood a much-needed boost.”
Anybody enrolling on a course at the Bishopdale hub will also be able to access individual careers advice and support to find employment or progress to further and higher education.
More details about courses on offer at the Bishopdale Adult Learning Hub are available in the Spring Course Guide that can be downloaded at leicester.gov.uk/adulteducation.
For more information about learning opportunities for adults and the Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS), call 0116 454 1900.
Please consider the environment.