Bradford College opens £19m motor vehicle building
Following almost two years of construction by Morgan Sindall, the four-storey Junction Mills building on Thornton Road is now operational.
Construction completed in June, having topped out in September last year.
The £19.3m scheme was funded through £17.8m from the Department for Education’s Further Education Capital Transformation Fund, alongside a £1.5m contribution from Bradford College.
The new-build facility was constructed on the site of a derelict former textile mill, which was demolished to make way for the development.
The facility includes collaboration classrooms, IT labs, a boardroom, student balcony, and three large workshops, including dedicated bays for electric vehicles and a hydrogen fuel cell car.
Specialist equipment supplied by JHM Butt & Co includes vehicle lifts for MOT testing and wheel alignment, computerised roller brake testing systems, petrol and diesel emissions analysers and tyre changers.
The building will accommodate up to 650 students, providing training in automotive and digital engineering, with a particular focus on the skills required for electric and hybrid vehicles.
The project also delivered significant carbon savings during its design and construction phases. It achieved Morgan Sindall Construction’s platinum certification for carbon savings, with the use of electric arc furnace steel in the structural frame alone saving around 290 tonnes of carbon.
Overall, the project is estimated to have saved 473 tonnes of carbon, equivalent to the emissions associated with heating 175 UK homes for a year.
Junction Mills forms part of Bradford College’s wider estates programme, following almost £32m of funding secured over the past three years.
Other recent capital projects include the Garden Mills facility, which opened in autumn 2024 to provide digital, science and allied health training, and the remodelling of creative facilities for The Producing Academy in 2025.
College officials said the new facility would support the development of skills needed by the region’s automotive and engineering sectors, including the transition towards electric and hybrid vehicles.
