PART of Bradford city centre is undergoing rapid changes as work starts to demolish a former college building and a new high tech education building is being built a short distance away.

Bradford College's £10 million advanced technology centre is being built on the Alexandra car park on Randall Well Street, and will open in September. It is hoped that the centre will create a workforce of people qualified to work in cutting edge technology businesses.

Meanwhile work to demolish the college's Westbrook building, vacant since the opening of the David Hockney Building in September, has started. Once the demolition is complete a new public open space will be built on the site.

The new building, with a capacity for 700 students, will house classes for subjects like electronic engineering and green technology and will feature state of the art technology.

It has been funded by a £10 million grant from the Skills Funding Agency, and will also include space for start up businesses.

BAM, the company that built the David Hockney Building, was contracted for the new building and the demolition, and civil engineering and construction management students at the college have joined them for placements.

Once the demolition site is cleared, BAM will work on creating a tiered area of public open space, which will include wi-fi, and car park for the college.

The 42-week build programme for the ATC will be completed next spring.

Ronan O'Beirne, director of learning development and research at the college, said the Westbrook Building had "passed it's sell by date", adding: "Education has moved on, we need a different configuration of spaces and it can be very difficult and expensive to install Wi-Fi in an older building."

The ATC will specialise in teaching students about robotics, 3D printing and other technologies that were science fiction when the college's older buildings were constructed.

Mr O'Beirne added: "It will have educational training for high tech industries. We are meeting with local businesses and asking what types of skills their workforce needs.

"We would like any technology based businesses to contact us if they want to work with us. These are industries where you can't train a workforce quickly enough.

"We are looking at classes over the summer and for the building to be used in the evening.

"There will be spaces that start up companies can use so they can use our facilities. We want the equipment we put into this building to be used 24 hours a day. There will also be space where start ups could rent for a few months.

Mr O'Beirne said the college could have some outside classes in the park area, which would be open for the public to use.