Colleges’ merger talks

1:12pm Tuesday 22nd January 2008

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MERGER talks are under way to combine two of the area's further and higher education colleges.

Bexley College, Tower Road, Erith, and North West Kent College, which has campuses in Oakfield Lane, Dartford, and Dering Way, Gravesend, have created a joint steering group to look at combining the two colleges.

The group, made up of three governors from each college, will also be sounding out the views of the Learning and Skills Council.

The merger talks follow an approach by Bexley College.

The college's governors had commissioned a report on its future which put forward a range of options, and the most suitable was a merger.

Both colleges cater for full and part-time students from a similar area and provide a varied range of further and higher education courses.

Between them, the colleges offer degree courses, in conjunction with Greenwich University, as well as vocational courses such as hairdressing and beauty, construction, motor mechanics, catering, secretarial and performing arts.

Bexley has around 450 staff and 5,000 students while North West Kent has around 10,000 students.

HAving begun life as Erith Technical Institute in 1907, Bexley College has been contracting in recent years, selling off its Sidcup and St Joseph's, Abbey Wood, campuses for housing.

And it is committed to selling its Tower Road headquarters and moving the college to somewhere else in Bexley.

A feasibility study is underway and the college says this move will happen whatever decision is taken on the merger.

Staff are being kept informed and both colleges say they envisage retaining campuses in all three areas.

David Gleed, the interim principal of Bexley College said: "Discussions are at an early stage."

North West Kent College principal Malcolm Bell added: "It is important to stress at this stage, we are considering the possibility of a merger."