North Shropshire College 4.29

North Shropshire College is a further education college in Shropshire, England. Walford and Oswestry are where the two main campuses are based, although there are other smaller centres used throughout the county.Creation & BrandingWalford and North Shropshire College was created in January 2001 following the merger of North Shropshire College in Oswestry and Witchurch, and Walford College in Baschurch; Ron Pugh was appointed the Principal of the merged College. Following his retirement, Andrew Tyley took over from Pugh. During the 2014-15 academic year, Walford & North Shropshire changed their name to North Shropshire College, with a new colour scheme and website to match.Oswestry CampusThe King Street Institute was founded in 1921 to meet the demands of the local mining and railway industries. In 1958 it moved to a site in College Road, and became the Oswestry College of Further Education.In 1978 Oswestry Tertiary College was created during the Tertiary re-organization. It was renamed The North Shropshire College in 1991. It had three main campuses: College Road and Upper Brook Street in Oswestry, and Talbot Campus in Whitchurch. It signed a federated college agreement with Staffordshire University in 1997; at this time the college had a trading subsidiary called 'Mereside' to deal with the College's work with companies and a range of government-sponsored programmes; including coordinating communication for the government's "New Deal" initiative for the colleges in Shropshire.Oswestry Campus was upgraded in a multi-million pound refit. The Technology block was replaced by a new three story block, and an extra floor was added to the main block. A new £1.3 million Business and IT Centre. including a major upgrade to the teaching kitchen and basic skills area was completed for the start of the autumn term 2008. It is now equipped with banks of wireless laptops with internet access, eight dedicated computing teaching rooms and a graphic design suite with Apple Mac computers.