Planning permission has been granted for the construction of Anglia Ruskin University’s new £9.3 million university centre in Harlow, Essex. The centre is being built with £5 million of funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Strategic Development Fund. The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) has also invested £3.8 million in the construction of the new campus.

Building at the new site is due to begin this summer. The project is a joint venture between Anglia Ruskin University and Harlow College, the Essex town’s only further education college.

Anglia Ruskin University has a long history of cooperation with Harlow College: degree-level courses at the college’s prestigious School of Journalism, whose alumni include Kate Adie, Michael Buerk and Sue Lawley, are already validated by the Cambridge-based university.

Initially, six degree subjects will be offered at the new Harlow centre, which will be known as the Anglia Ruskin University Centre with Harlow College. This September, prior to completion of the building works, 100 students will begin courses in IT, Business Management, Early Childhood Studies, Journalism, Sports Journalism and Public Services at the new centre.

The number of further and higher education students on the new site is eventually expected to rise to as many as 4,000 by 2011, as development at the centre continues.

Facilities in the new building will include a 96-seat lecture theatre, as well as conference facilities and an i-Lab, “an IT facility to encourage and inspire creative thought”. The School of Journalism will also benefit from a suite of facilities at the new site, which will include a news room and a radio studio.

In addition to its new site in Harlow, Anglia Ruskin University is also participating in a similar joint venture with Peterborough Regional College, as well as a new specialist centre in Colchester for research into laparoscopic (or “keyhole”) surgery.

The University is also planning the construction of a new multi-million pound international business school in the East Road area of Cambridge.

The University’s new developments in Harlow and Peterborough are part of a HEFCE package designed to improve access to learning in areas of the country where provision for further and higher education is poor. Only 16% of Harlow residents have more advanced qualifications than A-levels, compared to an Essex average of 27%. In the long term, the new University centre is expected to raise this figure to 20%.