The new era for Runshaw’s Professional Engineering Centre has begun.

With construction works now complete, official opening took place on Friday 27th January 2023 with a host of special guests in attendance. The two-storey building complete with 12 classrooms offers a range of facilities that will create an exceptional student experience and will be home to the Professional Engineering School, including both T Levels in Design and Civil Engineering. Situated next to the most recent building addition to the campus, Patterdale, Buttermere will provide our current students and our September 2023 intake with industry-standard facilities, state-of-the-art technology and 12 brand new rooms.

Buttermere was first conceived back in November 2021, after the Government committed additional capital investment in the education estate to support levelling up education across England. This included £83 million in 2021-22 to ensure that post-16 providers can accommodate the expected demographic increase in 16 to 19-year-olds.

The building itself is 1000m2 and continues the proud Runshaw tradition of naming buildings after parts of the Lake District as a nod to the beautiful ancient woodland that our Campus is built within. We have enjoyed watching the progression of work by Collinson Construction.

The grand opening consisted of tours of both our new ESports Hub and our Immersive Hub, followed by speeches by both our Principal Clare Russell and Katherine Fletcher MP for South Ribble. Commencement of the ‘official’ opening with the ribbon cutting followed, ending with our guests – including the Mayor of Chorley Councillor Julia Berry, the Mayor and Mayoress of South Ribble – Councillor David Howarth and Councillor Jayne Rear, and our College Governors – and students touring Buttermere for the very first time.

We would like to thank everyone for attending the opening, and a thanks to our wonderful student ambassadors for helping with event! Watch the full Grand Opening video below.

If you’d like to study Engineering at Runshaw click here to view our courses.