The LRC, Business & Technology Centre

This is the largest building on the campus - which is also home to reception and learner services, exams and other professional support teams. As the name suggests, it houses a fully-equipped learning resource centre which spans two floors and combines traditional library services with essential IT facilities and learning pods. It is home to over 20,000 books and periodicals as well as daily newspapers providing a modern and spacious learning environment.

The Centre is also home to a dedicated employer engagement team who specialise in apprenticeships. Facilities include a suit of seminar rooms and Information Technology resources, for the delivery of specific courses for employers.

The Technology Centre is geared to provide an excellent learning environment for both engineering and construction courses. These include: Manufacturing, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Electronics, ICT, Computer Aided Design, Motor Vehicle Engineering and Music Technology. Construction areas include: Electrical Installation, Plumbing, Brickwork, Carpentry and Joinery, and Furniture.

The centre comprises specialist workshops which have the latest industry standard equipment and offer some of the best learning resources in the Country. These include:

Music

The Sound Engineering facility boasts four state-of-the-art project control rooms, two purpose-built live rooms, a Mac room based around Apple Mac and logic DAW as well as a master control room. The latter is our flagship studio which is home to an Audient ASP8024 with DLC mixing console, a high end piece of equipment widely used throughout the international music industry. These superb facilities provide the basis for all our Music Technology courses available at the college. Combined with industry-active staff, HLC’s Sound provision offers a very impressive experience for the student.

Motor Vehicles

Our purpose built workshop provides Motor Vehicle Engineering students with all the standard equipment as expected, but in addition has MOT standard testing equipment – such as a rolling road for brake testing, diagnostic equipment, two 2 post lifts and one 4 post lift, a vehicle valet area, a fleet of modern vehicles for students to work on, and the latest exhaust extraction equipment. Investment is on-going and a new dedicated diagnostic bay with Bosch diagnostic & fault finding equipment has been recently added.

Electrical Installation

We have two new workshops complementing our on-site training programmes. Within the electrical installation workshops there are 27 dedicated work stations all with power supply and diagnostic equipment – providing enough capacity to cope with the training requirements of the Industry.

Furniture Studies

Furniture students have a modern dedicated workshop, with bench facilities that allow up to 16 stations to work simultaneously. A comprehensive tool kit is supplied for each student’s exclusive use, and will remain their sole responsibility for the time they are at college. The workshop is fully equipped with a wide range of machines and power tools that meet industry standards. Full training is provided on all machines which include bandsaw, spindle moulder, wood turning lathes, guillotine, planer thicknesser, bobbin and disc sanders, cross cut, and morticer. We also have access to a dedicated machine workshop which allows us to work on larger sections and components, including cutting sheet material and converting large boards into manageable components. All machines are state-of-the-art, meet current health and safety standards, and are facilitated by full dust extraction.

Engineering

In 2013 our purpose built engineering workshop was extended to meet increased demands with the addition of the latest equipment such as precision lathes and turret-milling machines. Most recently students have benefited from a refurbished CAD suite running the latest software including Autocad Mechanical/Electrical 2014, Autodesk Inventor Professional 2014 and Solid Works 2014, as well as a ZPrinter450 3D printer for rapid prototyping and design evaluation.

IT Suites

The computing department offers three dedicated IT classrooms equipped with its own servers and network using Windows 7 and Ubuntu dual boot desktops and Windows 2008 and Linux servers. The purpose designed networking classroom has a desktop computer per student with internet connection and a laboratory PC per student with connections to the lab network. This network consists of NAS storage, 2 rack servers and 18 routers and 18 switches. Students also have a selection of PCs, laptops and peripherals for maintenance and installation practicals. The dedicated software classroom has a desktop computer per student fitted with generous RAM, SSD, dual core processor and dual monitors All students have internal and external access to our wiki for all course resources and to dedicated storage on our computing servers. They also have hosted space with database access on our web servers.

Plumbing

Our plumbing students enjoy the exclusive use of two state-of-the-art, fully-equipped workshops one of which incorporates the new Gas Centre which has now opened for full operation. Plumbers complete practical assignments in realistic work environments, included dedicated rooms for the installation of complete, operational bathroom suites. Significant investments in plumbing facilities have taken place over the past 18 months, resulting in sector-leading practical training opportunities for students.

Carpentry & Joinery

The carpentry and joinery facilities at HLC are sector-leading in terms of space, variety and equipment. The light and airy bench workshops, both of which can comfortably accommodate 16 students, are complemented by a large dedicated machine workshop which houses several industrial standard machines, including a full-size wall board saw and a newly-acquired bandsaw. There is also a covered outside area which provides a realistic site environment for large-scale projects, and a recently-upgraded indoor site area with a mezzanine floor above. A full and varied selection of top-quality hand and power tools are available for use by our carpentry and joinery learners.

Brickwork

Our large Brickwork workshops, City & Guilds Qualifications and training programmes are set up to mirror closely construction site environments and conditions. Students are not only trained in the practical skills required, but they are also taught to think, plan and problem solve for themselves in a realistic working environment. A full range of modern tools and equipment are available to our students, as is a constant supply of bricks, blocks and miscellaneous brickwork materials.