Students, staff and special guests attended a special ceremony to mark the progress of the foundations and steel structure for a brand new £3.65m Zoological Education Centre at Shuttleworth College.

Guest of honour, Owen Craft, General Manager at the world renowned ZSL (Zoological Society of London) Whipsnade Zoo, near Dunstable, was joined by student ambassadors, The Bedford College Group CEO and Principal Ian Pryce CBE, Centre Curator Carl Groombridge and College Governor, Alasdair Simmons to tighten one of the structural bolts for the steel frame at the land-based learning campus at Old Warden near Biggleswade.

Bringing the Amazon and The Outback to Bedfordshire, Shuttleworth College’s ZEC will be the only Further Education centre in the UK to have a specially-designed biome for housing tropical creatures from around the world. The unit will follow an “Evolutionary Pathway” along which students will learn how to look after every “order” of the animal kingdom. It will include an aquatic room, bird flight area and outside paddocks for the bigger animals. 

This highly specialised training which young people can undertake at The Bedford College Group facility will prepare them to follow the trails cut by earlier students who are now working in prestigious zoos and conservation centres.