Claire Arbery, director at West of England Institute of Technology, says the date March 31st 2021, has been a key day in my calendar for the last 18 months. Why? We committed back in the summer of 2019 to fully open The West of England Institute of Technology (www.weiot.ac.uk) and its building projects by this date. Have we achieved it?
It's fair to say that the last 12 months have been like no other. When we committed to deliver a capital build programme and the associated learning, we had no clue about what was around the corner.
A positive start
January 2020 we were moving at pace agreeing the final designs and costings for the five build programmes that supported the creation of the Institute of Technology. Working with each of the academic Partners (Weston College – Lead, Bath, Gloucester, Yeovil Colleges and UWE Bristol) we agreed a plan for each, and I learned more about cost / sq metre of classroom and technical space than I ever thought possible. Tenders for work were being issued and its full steam ahead.
A year ago
Forward to March 2020, and Weston College took an early decision to start to reduce people on site. By Mid-March we were preparing for working remotely and by the end of March the whole of the country was in national lockdown. Everything stopped. The planned build works - ceased. Work planned for the summer break in void time. Paused.
The impact
Whilst building work was stopped the IoT delivery did not. We managed to get the licence to operate signed by all 19 parties - yes there are 19 - in hardcopy over the Easter break. The postman and I had daily banter about the number of ‘signed for’ packages arriving, but this licence gave us the ability to move forward and deliver our aspirations for high quality, local, technical education.
During the summer, works pressed ahead in Weston and Yeovil, creating exciting spaces for Health, Digital and Creative spaces and Engineering facilities. The build project for Bath, and the challenges of building in a Heritage city, was resolved and project specification for UWE Bristol was approved. Gloucester moved ahead with its plans for the Cyber Labs in Cheltenham – very close to GCHQ.
We continued planning of delivery of courses, to ensure when we could re-open, we were ready, and we supported employers with recruitment to welcome Apprentices from September 2020. We kept moving forward and whilst there were challenges with steels being delayed, windows being stuck in a factory, furniture and computers held up in a dockyard we made progress.
My highlight was being issued an ‘essential travel’ permission by DfE for a site visit in December.
So, what I have learned from this experience?
The first thing I have learned is that actually I am pretty resilient, and even there have been moments when I have wanted to scream and the 5th phone call of the day has been a delay to a piece of equipment, we have found a way to make it work.
Secondly, be honest, own your mistakes and ask for help or time to put them right. Working together and creating a solution is much more powerful.
And, I miss working in an office – the daily exchange of someone sharing a story of a disastrous dinner, or a delight in a child doing well at school has been missing. Whilst I get more done at home, the personal connections are not as strong over teams or zoom.
And finally…. Have I met the challenge of March 21?
Well, we had a good go at it, and by the end of March, 3/5 projects will be complete and the others by June 21. Students joining the IoT in September 21 will have a fully completed IoT with all the latest technology and all will be ready to welcome them, so maybe I met the challenge after all?
Not too bad in a global crisis?
Please feel free to drop me an email to find out how you or your staff can access IoT courses from Sept 21.
Email at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @WE_IoT