Case study: Reaseheath College
How Reaseheath College modernised its training through an innovative approach to estates management.
Independent, sustainable food production is of increasing importance in a time of international political turbulence and the growing impact of climate change. Land-based colleges are key to supplying a skilled workforce to support this growing need.
Reaseheath College has invested extensively in its estate and facilities to keep pace with technological requirements and supply the best, most relevant training.
It has acquired a new site to provide heavy engineering apprenticeships to supply the specific needs of large employers and expand into training with links to its core land-based mission. The college has professionally qualified senior team members with estates technical expertise which reduce consultancy costs.
Reaseheath College is a land-based college in Cheshire. It has:
- 3,693 full-time equivalent (FTE) students
- an annual turnover over of £35 million
- Ofsted rating of Good and Financial Health rating of Good
The college operates:
- a zoo and animal management centre
- an agri-tech centre and commercial farm
- a horticultural glass house and vertical farm
- an equestrian centre
- sports science facilities
It leases a second industrial site where it offers 150 engineering apprenticeships.
Reaseheath College offers:
- 16 to 19 classroom learning
- apprenticeships
- adult learning
- special educational needs (SEN) provision
- higher education (HE)
- full cost provision
- 900 student accommodation spaces
The college works with several major national employers, including JCB, Volvo, Muller, First Bus. The estates strategy was approved by governors on 1 February 2021.
Student numbers in 2020 to 2021
| Type of student | Number of students |
|---|---|
| 16 to 19 classroom | 2,269 |
| Apprentices | 645 |
| HE students | 637 |
| Adults | 266 |
The college operates over a site with building space of:
- 78,890 square metres GIA
- 138 hectares of freehold land
- 100 hectares of leased land
- 238 hectares total footprint
The total annual running costs are £2,892,000 per year.
Estate condition
The estate condition is broken down into 4 categories.
| Condition category | Estate in category |
|---|---|
| A | 36% |
| B | 41% |
| C | 21% |
| D | 2% |
Functional suitability
Functional suitability measures the extent to which a space meets its required use.
- Very good: 53%
- Good: 33%
- Satisfactory: 9%
- Unsatisfactory: 5%
Land-based colleges typically operate over large estates and perhaps have the highest need for ongoing capital investment in the sector. This is the case for Reaseheath.
It has the additional challenge of maintaining relevance in training students for modern commercial agricultural practice. This requires high levels of investment in new technology and infrastructure, as well as maintenance of existing assets, which include c.130 buildings.
The college has one listed building. The college operates in a conservation area, but this has not caused significant issues to date.
The college produces a 5-year estates strategy which they review and update on a rolling annual basis. This as part of overall strategic planning. The major employers referred to above all contribute to strategy. They input to the accommodation plan, as do apprentices and other students.
Quantity surveyor as Head of Estates
The college made the decision to appoint a qualified quantity surveyor to the senior leadership team to head up management of the estate. This is unusual practice in the sector. It has provided the college with expert advice, particularly in the management of large capital projects. It has also helped get the best value from suppliers.
The Head of Estates’ large project experience and technical knowledge gives the management team the ability to:
- challenge price estimates
- manage large programmes of work
- expertly manage multiple suppliers
- save money on external consultancy fees
The college accepts that a permanent appointment like this is unlikely to be provide best value for every college, particularly small or sixth-form colleges. The college management team views this as good practice for a land-based organisation with a large and complex asset base.
For colleges who could not justify a full-time qualified surveyor in their management teams, the college suggests that regional teams of qualified surveyors, architects and estates management professionals could be appointed to support college estate development. This would make sure that colleges had access to advice on estate management from professionals who understood the local skills landscape. This is instead of relying on and paying for national consultants.
Employing staff with technical qualifications
The college also has a policy of employing technically qualified staff in its wider estates team. For example, one facilities manager has civil engineering project management experience.
Whilst this may result in a higher salary cost, it saves large external professional fees. It also ensures that expert employees generate value from the routine management of external suppliers and projects.
The college employs an independent, skilled clerk of works for large projects. This adds additional quality assurance and value for money. The college never relies solely on contractor teams to provide them with advice but always seeks independent expert input.
Forward planning
The Head of Estates cited several examples of good forward planning in the management of the estate. As well as successfully delivering a large capital programme, the college has been thinking ahead and incorporating design elements which will provide value in the long run. For example, all new roofs have been constructed to a standard which is designed to take the load of solar power installations. This is so that these can be installed later without any need for additional engineering or building cost.
The college also laid ducts underneath a new boundary road which would allow power cables to be fed through from a proposed local aqua power project. The college could negotiate this supply without digging up roads in the future.
Curriculum planning process
The college conducts a very thorough curriculum planning process. This requires each area to present plans for their strategies each year in a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach.
Initial curriculum plans are required to be presented in a 90-minute session and cover 4 areas:
- curriculum and impact (content, quality, development, guided learning hours, pastoral)
- people plan (skillsets, development)
- environment (facilities and resources)
- financial (delivery model, budget, contribution)
This ensures a holistic approach to plans. These areas are used to plan KPIs for ongoing performance measurement. A major advantage of this approach is that resource and capital requirements are identified at an early stage, rather than there being a separate bid exercise conducted after curriculum planning is finished.
There is more work to be done in joining estates performance metrics into the same exercise, which will be a further stage of development.
The college has invested £30 million over a 6-year period in a series of projects. This is to make sure that the college’s assets are of a high enough quality to offer education and training which keeps pace with the latest technological developments of the land-based industry.
The investment has transformed large areas of the site and provided links to industry, with agricultural equipment manufacturers supplying the latest technology.
The college has invested in:
- a new horticultural centre, including a glasshouse
- a sports hall and 3G pitch
- an agri-tech workshop with classroom space attached
- 200 beds of student accommodation
- a project to link the HE Centre Library to the main campus
- a complete rebuild of the science laboratories
- an indoor farm including a vertical farm
- a robotic milking parlour
This project was funded by:
- a £12 million sale of land
- grant support from both the ESFA and the local enterprise partnership (LEP)
- a revolving credit facility
- a medium-term loan
- the college’s cash reserves
Land sale
The college sold 39 acres of its land to a developer as part of a consortium. The £12 million receipts from this sale were part of the investment plan. The team employed a land agent to negotiate on their behalf in this transaction. This was critical to managing risk and ensuring best value.
A downside of this project was the loss of grazing, which put pressure on nitrate vulnerable zone (NVZ) metrics. This was dealt through the curriculum planning strategy to re-site crops further from the college. This meant that near fields could be restored for grazing and silage.
Milking parlour and vertical farm
The robotic milking parlour and vertical farm were fully funded by the LEP. They provide students with opportunities to train in facilities which are of growing importance in modern agriculture.
In the robotic milking parlour, dairy cows learn to milk themselves by attaching to machinery which automatically calibrates flow and measures the health and quality of the milk.
Reaseheath also has a vertical farm, which is a highly controlled indoor agricultural environment. Crops are grown in vertically stacked layers. The vertical farm is completely solar-powered. It has a low land usage footprint and grows commercial crops at minimal cost and in a small space. It uses techniques such as hydroponics to grow plants without soil. This sustainable project is an example of providing a training environment which features innovative elements of modern farming and sustainable food production.
Carbon reduction initiatives
In addition to the features of the vertical farm, the college is engaged with several specific carbon reduction initiatives, including:
- planting winter crops overground
- not importing any feed
New student accommodation
Whilst all investments have impacted on the quality and relevance of student learning, one of the biggest single impacts has been new student accommodation. This supports large company apprenticeships, as well as housing students who travel for specialist land-based teaching and higher education.
New site
Another recent estates development is the lease of a large industrial site close to the college measuring 0.5 hectares at a relatively low cost. It houses apprenticeship programmes for 150 to 200 engineering apprentices for First Bus and Aviva. This came at the direct request of these large employers and is expanding. It also has a natural synergy with the land-based offer, working with heavy machinery and transport, meaning that it is a diversification in alignment with the strategic plan.
The cost of the lease is £140,000 per annum. It is a 15-year lease, with a break clause at 10 years. Teaching at the site is growing, but there are contingency plans for alternative use or sub-letting if there is a change in circumstances.
Liability for dilapidations is included in the lease but a full inspection was completed by a quantity surveyor at the point of legal handover. This was to ensure that these would not be financially difficult. The new provision has been highly successful, and the college is expecting to expand the offer.
Leasing of land
The college also leases out land to a local football team and lets the residential wardens’ flats.
There have been several immediate benefits because of the college’s investment projects.
Environment and facilities
Staff and students benefit from working in a modern and attractive environment with state-of-the-art facilities. Investment in the right facilities has led to a growth in HE student recruitment and a retention of student numbers. This is despite the COVID-19 pandemic impacting on residential offers and general operations.
Residential provision
The expanded residential provision gives national access for land-based students and apprentices working with large employers.
Working with employers
Land-based students train using industry-standard facilities and innovative farming techniques. The college has been responsive in providing new bespoke apprenticeship programmes at the direct request of large, national employers.
Supporting the community
The college’s contribution to sustainable food production is an area of increasing importance. The recent high levels of investment in this priority training need reflects this. The sensitive management of the local landscape is an important part of the local economic plan. The college estate is used by local professional sports teams and hired for use by community groups.
The management reported a number of lessons learned from the project which can improve future practice.
Standards and requirements
The requirement to deliver projects to the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) standard was challenging. The management of grant funding requirements for contractors to be paid in advance of finishing the project was also a challenge because it did not allow a capacity for retention and snagging payments.
Accommodation planning
Specifying the student halls of residence was time-consuming and required a lot of end-user testing. In future, with a similar development, the college might look to visit other townhouses to gain practical insight from other projects.
Key contractor insolvency
Reaseheath experienced the insolvency of their main construction delivery contractor part way through a major project. The actions which the college took to deal with this ensured that the project budget was not greatly impacted by the disruption and the project timescale only increased by 3 months.
As soon as they became aware of the contractor insolvency, the college team:
- took steps to secure the site to protect assets and materials – this included safely erecting additional barriers and hiring external security
- took photographs of the site at the date of the insolvency, including materials
- secured any project documentation from the site which was not already held in a central record
- informed governors, banks, insurance companies, planning authorities, college regulatory agencies and funding agencies, in writing
- engaged a new project manager
- secured an early independent valuation of the work completed to date and arranged a stocktake of materials
- considered whether educational provision may be affected by delays to the project and any practical impacts of this – for example, the potential need to hire temporary classrooms
- considered options for re-procurement which included re-visiting the original tender list to see if other highly-scoring contractors were available to continue the project and whether their tendered pricing was still open to acceptance
- reviewed options for transfer or novation of existing sub-contractors and consultants, and also existing collateral warranties, to mitigate risk and cost, and provide continuity
- determined that their guiding principle was to act reasonably – they did not pay for any subcontractor costs that arose because of the insolvency and were not the college’s liability, but they allowed subcontractors back on site under supervision to collect tools and equipment
- kept a thorough file of actions, evidence, cost documentation, photos and other documents in a secure place, stored for a long period, in the event of administrators wanting to see this when checking for any assets of the liquidated company
- obtained a written position on any impacts on grant funding or lending underpinning the project, and retained these for audit
Before the insolvency the college had ordered most project materials in advance, when prices were optimal, with a long lead-in time and stored them securely. This meant that there was little disruption to supplies needed to complete the work. They had also hired a lot of the equipment directly – for example, the site generator and fencing – meaning that these elements were unaffected by the insolvency.
In future, they may consider requiring contractors to provide a bond against insolvency on future projects, although this is not always easy to secure in the necessary project timescale and usually increases tender costs.
The Head of Estates is concerned by the large value of investment required in infrastructure. For example, there is a £2 million water main and an electrical ring main in need of replacement. There is also the need to replace old boilers with heat pumps and green technology, and to upgrade IT infrastructure.
It is difficult to secure grant funding or lending for such projects, which do not result in tangible estates, but are equally vital to securing the future of quality provision.
The college obtained a partial VAT zero rating for its accommodation project due to the level of 16 to 19 and foundation learning occupancy. In general, it is not able to get a zero rating for capital projects due to the mixed nature of the provision.
Its curriculum planning covers a range of student and employer requirements and considers capital resourcing at an early stage. This thorough process will be at the heart of the next stage of planning for the estate strategy. This strategy will need to consider the challenge of updating core plant and infrastructure, so that energy efficiency and sustainability underpin the delivery of the new curriculum.
Electrical ring main
The need for a single electrical ring main is preventing progress with a central site heating system that would be driven by heat pumps. This system could feed the whole site which is currently supplied by many individual boilers.
As a key piece of infrastructure, the ring main is limiting future development. The next phase of the estates strategy will need to identify potential solutions for this challenge, as well as other elements of service infrastructure requiring updates.
Availability of funding
The availability of grant funding and understanding the basis of grant award was felt to be a challenge for funding future developments. The college will continue to need to keep pace with industry changes.
A forum of people who have experience of similar project management would be a useful reference point, perhaps via a national register of projects.
Efficient use of space
A specific challenge faced by land-based colleges is the amount of space required for specialised provision, particularly involving housing of livestock. For example, milking parlours are not necessarily an efficient use of space compared with other educational provision but are required to be of a certain size for animal welfare and good production standards.
Data set
A project is currently underway to support land-based colleges with tailored benchmarking information which will provide a data set for estates, health and safety and submetering for costs, and which is expected to prove useful for future data comparison.