Pudsey

Pudsey 6th Form College

Previous Project

Carnegie Teaching and Research

Project Details

Client

Luminate Education Group

Location

Pudsey

Sector

Education

Scope of Works

Construction value: £12million
MEP value: £3.5million
BREEAM: Excellent
GIFA: 3200m2
Contractor: Willmott Dixon

Get In Touch

Two-storey brick exterior of Pudsey Sixth Form College with brise soleil shading the main entrance.

Two students working at a table in the naturally lit atrium at Pudsey Sixth Form College

Pudsey Sixth Form College from above with rooftop solar panels across the main roof. Building performance by CAD21

Visitors touring the new Pudsey Sixth Form College building during its open day.

Double-height dining hall at Pudsey Sixth Form College with full-height glazing and external solar shading.

Project Overview

Pudsey didn’t have a sixth form, so students were travelling into Leeds or leaving the area to study post-16. Luminate Education Group set out to change that with a purpose-built college off Kent Road, with room for up to 650 students.

CAD21 led the building performance engineering, working with Willmott Dixon and Enjoy Design. The brief went beyond the DfE baseline: the building had to run on as little energy as possible, both to keep running costs down and to unlock additional funding tied to its performance.

The work started with the fabric, built to LETI standards so the building demanded less before any plant was specified. Heating runs on air source heat pumps with no gas on site, ventilation is hybrid, and detailed modelling confirmed a low operational energy figure of 65 kWh/m². Rather than fix the solar array at handover, CAD21 designed an adaptable PV solution, so the college can add panels over time and move from net zero carbon ready to net zero in operation as funding allows.

The college opened in September 2025, built to BREEAM Excellent.