Willmott Dixon is adding to its £300 million workload enhancing university campuses across the UK with a £20 million contract to build the new Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine for Anglia Ruskin University.

Procured through the Scape Major Works Framework, it will create the first undergraduate school of medicine in Essex and follows the company’s recent role creating the award-winning Centre for Medicine at University of Leicester, the UK’s largest non-residential Passivhaus project. It also continues Willmott Dixon's growth in Essex

The Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine will be on the university’s Chelmsford campus and features specialist teaching space, lecture theatre, and an anatomy suite. It is hoped that at least 50 per cent of the students who study at the new facility will be from the East of England.

The school is much needed as the national workforce Minimum Data Set for General Practice shows that Essex is suffering from medical workforce shortages across primary care, mental health and acute care, with Mid and South Essex area having the highest percentage of GPs aged over 54 in the country, and the second highest patients-per-GP ratio in the country.

At the project launch, Professor Iain Martin, Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University, said,

“This is a very significant step towards us helping address the urgent need for more doctors and healthcare professionals in the UK, and specifically in Essex. We have worked closely with a broad range of partners across the region in planning for the School of Medicine and, whilst there is still much to do, we are now one step closer to our goal.”

Willmott Dixon is working with Rivington Street Studio architects and will complete the school by September 2018. It will provide approximately 3100m2 of space over three storeys.

This is the latest major project by Willmott Dixon in the university sector. The company is currently creating a London Campus for Coventry University in Dagenham, as well as building the new Town House for Kingston University, refurbishing the Dreadnought Building for Greenwich University and adding the Computational Foundry at Swansea University. Its experience of working in live environments is one factor for its university track-record.

Chris Tredget, managing director of Willmott Dixon in the northern Home Counties said, “Our experience in the sector will allow us to create a pioneering medical learning facility that will provide training to a new generation of medical staff who can work in healthcare across the county.”