Teesside opens its first neighbourhood HE centre

The University of Teesside officially opens its first higher education centre within a further education college tomorrow on Friday 4 May.

Appropriately the opening will be performed by Lord (Tom) Sawyer of Darlington, who was installed two years ago as the University’s Chancellor.

The £2m University Centre has been created in part of the new £35m new Darlington College development - opened in December by Prime Minister Tony Blair, MP for Sedgefield, County Durham, which is just a few miles away.

Lord Sawyer was born in Darlington and began his labour movement career as a local engineering union shop steward and secretary of Darlington Trades Council before becoming a top union leader with NUPE and General Secretary of the Labour Party.

He said: “If you had told me in the 1970’s that we would have not only this amazing new college in my home town but also a University Centre in the heart of it, I would not have believed you.”

The Darlington HE project is the first of a network of higher education centres across the Tees Valley which will eventually also include Hartlepool College and a new performing arts centre in Middlesbrough’s dockland rejuvenation Middlehaven area.

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