MORE than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money will be invested into an award-winning Newport-based software academy to allow it to move across the city.

Last month the Argus reported Cardiff University’s National Software Academy (NSA), currently based in The Platform building behind the train station, was set to move into the Newport Information Station in Queensway.

Newport City Council has signed off on a grant of £575,000 that will be given to the NSA from a joint regeneration pot managed by the council and Welsh Government.

The Academy will start moving into the Information Station next year after it was also decided that the council would sublet three floors to the university in a phased project.

Cllr Debbie Wilcox, the leader of the council, said: “Cardiff University approached the council because the National Software Academy was outgrowing its home near the railway station.

“It is our ambition to make Newport a vibrant technology hub so it was vital that we keep the academy in the city to help us achieve that ambition. It attracts inward investment by producing high quality graduates and over the last year more than 120 companies have engaged with the NSA.

“We are able to offer them space in the Information Station while still maintaining a “one-stop shop” for council services so I’m delighted we have been able to reach an agreement to share this landmark building.”

The plans will allow the three upper floors of the four-storey building, which is owned by Network Rail, to be sub-leased to the university, backed by a joint investment with the Welsh Government.

The move will provide the council an extra £336,000 a year in rental income, while saving £37,000 annually as a result of not being required to pay business rates on the upper floor of the building.

The remainder of the cost of the refurbishment of the floors, estimated to cost a total of £1.15 million, will be funded by the university.

Cllr Jane Mudd, Newport City Council’s cabinet member for regeneration and housing, said: “We have been able to secure the long-term future of the NSA in Newport rather than it having to relocate elsewhere.

“The grant will come from joint venture funding accrued by the council and Welsh Government which we have agreed will be used for economic regeneration projects that will benefit the city in a multiple of ways.

“Over the next 10 years, the university plans to invest about £2 million per year in Newport. This will create new jobs; increase the number of graduates and support up to 20 business projects every year. The NSA’s presence is crucial to our aspirations for the city.”

Stow Hill ward member Cllr Miqdad Al-Nuaimi, who backed the plan, in a council report said: “It gives me a lot of satisfaction to see the great progress and growth achieved by the NSA in the relatively short time in which it has been operating.

“To be able to operate in the city centre at an area, which Newport City Council wishes to see regenerated is another spin off of the proposed arrangement.

“A third reason is that the proposal fulfils part of the ethos and collaboration, partners in the Cardiff City Deal Region hope to achieve.”