College merger moves closer

The second of four options in the post-16 education review from the government associated Learning and Skills Council is favoured by the local project team, it has been announced.

The alternatives will be side-lined to concentrate on a major feasibility study.

If it survives this process and is agreed by the Secretary of State in January, Bexhill and Hastings colleges will merge.

A new site could be based at Battle and a new college in central Hastings, making it a 25.68 million multi-site tertiary college.

Other options will not be revived unless the feasibility study throws bad light on the tertiary plan.

The news is a disappointment to Bexhill College chair of governors Dr Keith Foord who fears this option marks a loss in autonomy for the institution and steals choice from students.

Dr Foord said college governors prefer option one: a tertiary board, with a new sixth form centre to complement, not engulf, the current institutions.

"The college governors are disappointed that the tertiary board option has not been recommended because they felt that individual institutions working together could deliver exactly the same results, with much more local ownership of the issues."

He said the recommendation 'flies in the face' of comments made by the Minister for Standards in Lifelong Learning, Alan Johnson, and his predecessor Margaret Hodge.

Talks with headteachers of schools and colleges have already begun, with the Hastings and Rother Project Board - a group set up by the LSC - inviting representatives to the second part of the recommendation meeting.

Issues that might arise should the tertiary option be taken forward as a formal recommendation were discussed.