Stamford College launches consultation to merge with Peterborough Regional College
People are being asked for their views about a proposed merger of New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College.
Each has about 5,000 students on the roll, and offers post-16 courses including A-levels, vocational qualifications and apprenticeships.
College governors launched a public consultation on Monday in order to find out what people think about the planned change.
Janet Meenaghan, principal and chief executive of New College Stamford, said: “Students at both colleges will not notice any particular changes to their daily lives as we have no plans to close any courses and will be continuing to offer the same broad curriculum in both Stamford - at Drift Road and Borderville - and Peterborough.
"The merger will, however, create a much larger college group, which will mean more funding, better economies of scale and improved resilience, enabling us to pool our resources and invest in our students, our courses and our campuses.
"The merger will also mean we have greater capacity to develop our apprenticeship and higher education provision and give us significant opportunities to work with, and respond to, our communities - whilst of course maintaining our focus on high quality education and outstanding support for our students.
“Similarly, for staff, there will be few changes on the ground as we will still be operating across two campuses - Peterborough College and Stamford College - and fully expect to grow our curriculum offer on both sites in response to local needs."
There are about 500 members of staff at New College Stamford of which about 150 are full time.
The merger could result in the rebranding of the two institutions simply as ‘Stamford College’ and ‘Peterborough College’.
People can have their say until February 3 and the colleges will publish a summary of responses in March. If the case for merger is favourable, governors will aim to conclude legalities by the end of July.
The consultation document is on the New College Stamford website.
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