Estates Strategy

Introduction and Background

City College Plymouth provides general further education, higher education and work-based learning to the city of Plymouth and surrounding areas. As a leading provider of vocational training in the Southwest, it has a vision to be the learning destination of choice, providing learning without limits at the heart of the local community.

The 5-year Estates Strategy (2026-2031) will outline the roadmap to transform the College property portfolio into a sustainable, efficient, and curriculum-led environment. The strategy will prioritise the alignment of physical assets with modern technical education, maximizing space utilization, and reducing carbon emissions to meet institutional net-zero targets.

One of the first Institutes of Technology, City College Plymouth has recently been awarded National Defence Technical Excellence College status. This means the College is set to play an increasingly important national and international role in developing the highly skilled workforce required to support the UK's defence capability and wider economic growth.

Another exciting collaboration with Plymouth City Council is the £50m regeneration of the Civic Centre, which will be converted into 144 apartments and a new city centre campus containing the Blue Green Skills Hub, which will train up to 2,000 students a year across 60 different courses.

Strategic Objectives

The new Estates Strategy will both drive and respond to these key developments and opportunities, building on this vision and helping to shape the future careers of thousands of young people and adults. The new strategy will have the following strategic goals:

• To align with the DfE 10-year national education estates strategy
• To provide industry-standard, good condition and right sized teaching spaces which support delivery of the curriculum, demands of local employers and needs of strategic partners.
• To reduce running costs by consolidating under-utilised space, planning maintenance activities and identifying obsolete assets.
• To set a pathway for operating an estate which is financially and environmentally sustainable

The Existing Estate

The College occupies several sites in the city with most activity taking place at the Kings Road campus. This 13-acre freehold campus accommodates over 29,000m2 of floor space, of which approximately half requires improvement to achieve the strategic goals above and to meet government estate condition objectives for the FE sector.

Leased properties include Picquet Barracks (1,900m2), Oceansgate (750m2), Pinpoint (700m2) and Norwich Union House (1,500m2). The last two are used by a college subsidiary, Achievement Training Limited. The redevelopment of the Civic Centre will add another 5,500m2 to the estate from 2031.

In response to the recent DfE Condition Data Collection, the College has commissioned an independent building condition survey, which will run in parallel with the development of this estates strategy.

Methodology

The new estates strategy will include the following core information projected over the 5-year period:

• Executive Summary and Strategic Context
• Analysis of the current estate
• Curriculum Strategy & Plan
• Space Utilisation Analysis
• Future Estate Objectives
• Options appraisal
• Funding and Finance
• Implementation plan

Deliverables

The final report will be presented to both the Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Governors (two separate presentations at Kings Road)

The following key outputs will be required as appendices to the report

• Asset register tracking tenure, age, condition and compliance status for each building
• Five-year, costed programme of maintenance and investment
• Disposal and acquisition schedule (if recommended)
• Space utilisation report
• Curriculum space model mapping projected enrolments to accommodation capacities
• Costed carbon reduction plan
• Estates risk register
• Dashboard of key performance indicators for estate management

Timescale

It is anticipated that the estates strategy will take approximately four months to prepare and the following provisional timeline has been identified

• Request for Quotation published July 2026
• Latest date for queries from interested parties 21 August
• Return date for fee proposals 31 August
• Interview short listed practices early Sept
• Appoint successful practice mid to late Sept
• Period for site familiarisation and review of information October
• Submit draft report for review January 2027
• Presentations to ELT and Governors February 2027

Fee proposal

Include the following information in your fee proposal

• Lump Sum Fee (exclusive of VAT) stating any assumptions or exclusions
• Day rates for out-of-scope tasks; additional expenses not included in 1.
• Resource plan showing breakdown of lump sum fee and required payment schedule.
• GANTT chart mapping project deliverables
• Case studies of similar work undertaken for Further Education colleges
• Description and relevant experience of your proposed team