A LOCAL MP has been appointed non-executive chairman of Herefordshire’s pioneering new university project, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering.

In taking on the role, Hereford and South Herefordshire MP Jesse Norman – whose constituency includes Welsh Newton, Llangrove, Whitchurch and Symonds Yat West – has welcomed a landmark funding agreement to underwrite the Hereford-based college’s rapid future growth.

Regeneration Partners Herefordshire has agreed a multi-year funding package which will put £5m into the new university.

This sits alongside over £6m of already-committed capital investment to build out and transform the university’s main campus.

The Stronger Towns Fund is providing £2.5, with a further £3.6m from the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust.

Mr Norman succeeds Terence Jagger in the role, having been closely associated with the university project since before its foundation.

A former academic, he has degrees from Oxford (MA) and UCL (MPhil, PhD), has taught philosophy at UCL, and has held fellowships at UCL, St Andrews and All Souls College, Oxford.

Mr Norman said: "NMITE is already showing that it can educate students at different life stages in hands-on engineering and technology to Bachelors and Masters level faster and more cost-effectively than any other university in the UK.

"Its first graduates are being snapped up by top quality national companies and organisations such as BAE Systems, Balfour Beatty, Kier Construction, AWE and the autonomous vehicle software company OXA, as well as terrific local firms here in the county.

"This new package of operational and capital investment will give the university the platform it needs for rapid future growth and transformational change to the nature of technical education in the UK.”

James Newby, chief executive of NMITE, said. "Our distinctive approach combines the best technical and vocational approaches with high levels of academic rigour to deliver rapid transformational change for our students.

“This new investment means we can extend and accelerate NMITE’s growth still further.”