Nelson and Colne College Group’s investment in Electric Vehicle technology

The new facilities will cover the servicing and maintenance of EVs, battery fault diagnosis and repair, electric motor technologies and the installation of charging equipment.

Work has already begun on the purchase of equipment and is expected to be rolled out early in 2022.

Dr Steve Wright, EV project leader, said: “I’m delighted to see the College making such a significant investment in this field.

“The roll out of electric vehicles is crucial to meeting our country’s climate obligations and it’s vital that the technicians working with these new vehicles and their charging systems are up to date and ready for the challenges of the next era of motoring.

“We’ll be using the new equipment to make sure that all of our motor vehicle students have experience of working with EVs.

“Some of the new resources are very specialist and beyond the reach of smaller businesses. We’ll be making them available to local employers to upskill their staff if they wish to.”

The new facilities build on existing equipment already in operation at Accrington and Rossendale College and Nelson and Colne College.

Once in place, students at Accrington and Rossendale College will get the opportunity to work on electric vehicles, from EV battery faults to the installation of charging facilities.

Nelson and Colne College will gain equipment to aid the study of a wide variety of electric motor systems.

The funding for this initiative has been provided from a government Skills Development Fund designed to support the move to greener technologies.

Led by Blackburn College, the project will create five electric and hybrid vehicle skills centres across Lancashire at Blackburn College, Nelson and Colne College Group, Blackpool and the Fylde College, Lancaster and Morecambe College and Myerscough College.