A £1.5 million project to improve facilities at the East Kent College campus in Folkestone has been given the go-ahead.

Construction training facilities at the college’s site in Shorncliffe Road will be extended and renovated to provide the latest space to teach and train the next generation of builders and plasterers.

The next extension will create an extra 1,089 sq m of space when it is completed ahead of its opening in January 2017.

Funding from the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) worth £1.36m was agreed last Friday and work is set to start in June.

EKC principal Graham Razey said: “There is a real skills deficit in the construction sector locally and regionally, and that is something which this new capital development will help to combat.”