New Campus Glasgow: Strategic Benefits Analysis
46
6.36 For many stakeholders, the potential impact of the new campus in helping to create
an internationally renowned learning quarter is one of the key impacts. The learning quarter
does exist already to some extent, but only as a loose cluster of learning institutions. The new
campus will offer the scope to improve access points to the learning quarter, and integrate it
more completely into the city centre. Improved service areas for practical learning, and
provision of exhibition space and potentially business incubation space will be key - in effect
creating an extension to the city centre that acts to draw-in potential learners from the citycentre.
The notion of a learning quarter - indeed a learning city - will raise the profile of all
Glasgow's learning institutes and the city itself to national and international audiences.
6.37 The three colleges currently generate significant economic impacts. The bulk of these
impacts are associated with the increase in expected earnings of learners on completion of
their study. But the colleges themselves also generate significant impacts in terms of the
employment and GVA that they generate directly in the local and national economies.
6.38 However, the additional economic impacts of the new campus are relatively small.
This is largely because of the assumption implicit in the proposals that the number of staff and
students will remain approximately constant on completion of the campus. The economic
impacts are thus limited to the construction jobs created during the construction of the New
Campus, and some increase in spending within the Glasgow economy associated with a
slight increase in the number of international students attending the colleges.
6.39 Nonetheless, the wider economic impacts of the new campus will be significant. This
is particularly the case in terms of providing young people with the skills they need to help
Glasgow respond to the economic recession and, by engaging learners during the downturn,
in helping to combat the effects of the recession on rates of unemployment and those who are
'NEET'.
224
Appendix 13: Economic Impact Report