CORNWALL COLLEGE CAPITAL FUNDING BLOW CONFIRMED

5.15.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 29th Jun 2009

Cornwall College's plans to improve their Pool campus will be delayed, after the Learning and Skills Council confirmed that the Pool project had not made it onto their prioritised list.

Plans were in place to spend £40 million renewing the Pool campus, as part of wider regeneration plans for the area. Work was expected to start in 2010, and hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on preliminary work. However, the plans were cast into doubt following a Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funding fiasco. Many colleges were encouraged to come forward with capital improvement projects that far exceeded the resources available to the LSC.

In a letter confirming the 13 colleges getting the go ahead this year, the Chairman of the LSC warned colleges hoping to go forward in the next allocation that they would have to wait until next autumn at the earliest to find out if they had been successful. Much will depend on the resources allocated in the Spending Review which First Secretary Peter Mandelson announced today will also be delayed until after the next election.

Commenting, Julia Goldsworthy MP said:

"As a result of financial mismanagement by the Department of Education and the Learning and Skills Council, Cornwall College is left facing a long wait before the improvements so desperately needed on the Pool campus can go ahead.

"Not only will this delay impact on plans to regenerate the whole area, but it will also leave staff and students working in buildings that have long passed their use-by date.

"The Arts and Media Exhibition the other week highlighted the impressive standards that so many students achieve - yet they are working in buildings that leak and have pieces of concrete literally falling off them. Now more than ever, young people need educational facilities that are fit for the 21st Century - the LSC's financial cock-up has meant that too many students on the Pool campus are left waiting once again."