Encora SCVO (centre for adult education) and WLAZ (Work while Learning, Antwerp South) wish to centralise their training campus for Hard Technologies into no more than 1 technical campus. The current establishments at d ’Herbouvillekaai do not have adequate workshop space and they are often only available after regular school hours (sharing with full-time secondary education institutions). Because of the growth potential, Encora wants to focus on these technical training courses and, to do that, they need 1 Technical Campus with sufficient workshop space that is also available during the day to Encora and WLAZ. By clustering the training offered by WLAZ and the SCVO, Encora can use the same infrastructure and the available facilities more efficiently and cross-training can be achieved.

The preference to find somewhere to house a campus for Technical Training in the south was mainly for sites in proximity to an (existing or planned) industrial park. Because of the technical orientation of the courses on offer, synergies and direct contact with industry and working life is highly desirable.

The spatial grouping with the new prison site was certainly no must in the search for a site for the educational campus, but rather an opportunity that presented itself.