Council sells Eastpoint site to local leading apprenticeship firm

7 October 2011

Southampton City Council is paving the way for more apprentices to be trained in the city.

The council’s Cabinet agreed on 26 September 2011 to give a local apprenticeship training company the chance to purchase its soon to be redundant Eastpoint Centre site.

The Eastpoint Centre is due to be passed back to the council following Eastpoint’s relocation to its state of the art new conference facility next month.

Apprenticeships Training Limited (ATL), currently based in Hedge End, will move into the 5.9 acre site in Bursledon Road on a short term lease with an option to purchase the site.

Councillor Royston Smith, Leader of Southampton City Council said:
“This is great news for the area and residents. This means we will utilise an existing building and bring an apprenticeship training company to the city.

“There are huge cost savings in not having to demolish the site or having security there whilst we look for an occupier.

“ATL offer great apprenticeship training to Southampton. We are always keen to keep jobs in the region, keep our young skilled people, while saving our taxpayers money.”

ATL is a training company for people who already work or want to work in the building service engineer sector. They are part of MIS group with an annual turnover in excess of £67m.

Cabinet agreed that ATL can now occupy the old Eastpoint building, while they are looking to prepare a planning application for a new purpose built training facility which they will fund once the site has been purchased, when the short term lease ends in 2013.

For more information:

Contact: Isabel Hokken, Media Officer at Southampton City Council
Tel: 02380834672
Email:isabel.hokken@southampton.gov.uk