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Kingsway student N-diri N-dili, left, with college principal Andy Wilson |
College in funding crisis
£50m refurbishment put on hold as government runs out of cash
A MASSIVE refurbishment of a leading further education college in Westminster has been derailed after the government funding arm ran out of cash.
Two major rebuilds at the Soho and Victoria campuses of Westminster Kingsway College (WKC) will be delayed by at least four years despite a pledge of more than £50million from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) last year.
The LSC was heavily criticised in March after auditors found it had pledged its entire 2008-11 budget within the first year leading to 144 building projects across the country being spiked.
Westminster Kingsway College principal Andy Wilson said: “The plan was that after we had finished work on our new campus in King’s Cross, work would start at Victoria.
“We were going to build one of the, if not the, most advanced hospitality colleges in the country. Many of the facilities that we were going to have in King’s Cross are not here because we had planned to move them into Victoria.”
WKC had spent more than £1.6m drawing up advanced plans for the developments in Peter Street and Castle Lane.
Mr Wilson said: “The LSC have said they will refund the £1.6m we have spent already. But this was a project that was worth £50m. It is not the kind of project that you can just scale down simply. The kitchens and ventilation would have cost more than £25m alone.
“The site in Soho was going to be phase three of the plans. We were going to create arts workshops. That was going to cost £20m. Now none of this is going to happen for a very long time.”
The collapse of the government’s programme to rebuild colleges was “predictable and avoidable”, according to a report published in March.
Report author Sir Andrew Foster said poor management meant early warnings of an overspend were not acted upon.
Sir Andrew said he had been incredulous at the “major mistakes” he had discovered during his investigation.
Mr Wilson added: “I was interviewed a few times as part of Sir Andrew’s report.
“We warned them that we could see that the LSC could not afford all the projects – but they just kept on promising.
“No one could do the numbers – I mean, these are basic calculations. There wasn’t even a spreadsheet.” |
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