D-day over merged college’s £90m bid

THE newly-merged College of West Anglia could learn by the end of the week if it has been successful in its £90million bid to pay for two new campuses in the Fens and West Norfolk.

An application was formally made to the Learning Skills Council on Friday for the money, which will be used to build two state-of-the-art campuses.

The new centre at King's Lynn could cost £50m while £25m would be spent on the Fenland site, which will be based in March.

The new campuses form part of the overall vision for the College of West Anglia following the merging of the Isle College at Wisbech and the King's Lynn-based College of West Anglia.

The merger took place last month and Peter Stewart, principal designate, said all was going well.

A team from the college made a presentation to the sub-committee of the Learning Skills Council last month about its plans for building two new campuses.

The sub-committee then made a presentation to the national council last week, and it is hoped the council will come back with its decision at the end of this week.

Once the funding has been secured, the college can continue with its plans to create the two new campuses.

Mr Stewart said negotiations regarding the location of the proposed campuses were continuing and it was hoped this would be concluded by early summer.

The new Lynn campus could be built on the Nar Ouse Regeneration Area, while the Wisbech campus would be relocated to a site in March. Project managers have been appointed and a shortlist of design teams has been drawn up.

Mr Stewart said the merger had gone as well as expected but there had been inevitable challenges because of the different systems at each campus.

The merger is expected to increase the number of students at the College of West Anglia over the next five years.