£307m to repair and maintain colleges in all regions of England to fix leaking roofs, broken windows and worn-out facilities, delivering national renewal
Lancaster and Morecambe College will receive £574,822, and Mysercough College will get £1.6m as part of an additional £5m boost in the government’s Further education college condition allocation for 2026/27, a £307m investment in every college in England to repair and maintain buildings.
From repairing leaky roofs and fixing broken windows to updating worn-out heating systems, all 175 colleges will benefit. Each one will receive individual allocations in the summer, ranging from £6,000 for smaller institutions to £7m for large college groups for the next academic year. Colleges will be given the flexibility to decide how the funding is spent, so it can be directed where it is needed most.
These upgrades will restore pride in England’s colleges and break down barriers to opportunity for students, with fewer disruptions to lessons, more comfortable learning environments, and better spaces for students to focus and succeed. Modernised colleges will be key to delivering on the Prime Minister’s target for two-thirds of young people to be taking a gold standard apprenticeship, higher training or heading to university by the age of 25.
The fund has been boosted by £5m since last year, when it was introduced in response to colleges calling for a reliable annual allocation to plan and maintain their estates. It is part of a £1.7bn investment from the government’s Industrial Strategy for colleges to modernise buildings by 2030.
Skills Minister Jacqui Smith said:
The young people in these colleges are the engineers, bricklayers and designers of the future, and they and the dedicated staff teaching them deserve the best possible environment to learn and succeed.
This £307 million investment will repair and modernise facilities across all 175 colleges in England, giving young people the spaces they need to build the skills they need for good careers, helping to drive economic growth.
Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Wyre said:
Children in Lancaster and Wyre will benefit from this government funding, which will help our local colleges continue to provide an excellent learning environment for young people to focus and succeed.
As the the government rapidly expands post-16 options to learn new trades and skills, I am delighted to see over £2m investment in our area, with colleges able to decide how the money is spent to best suit their needs.
It follows the announcement of £570m to increase capacity in colleges to train the next generation of skilled workers.
More widely, the government’s ambitious Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper set out plans to unlock opportunity for young people and drive growth for the country by improving the quality of further education. This includes the introduction of structured professional development for further education teachers and an expectation that colleges deliver at least 100 hours of face-to-face English and maths teaching for those who haven’t passed those GCSEs.
It also announced the creation of V Levels as a brand new vocational pathway to provide clearer, stronger options for young people, allowing them to mix and match academic and vocational subjects and setting them up for the jobs of tomorrow.
Funding will be distributed to colleges in due course.
- See the funding allocations at: Further education college condition allocation: 2026 to 2027 – GOV.UK