Debt-ridden Yorkshire college sheds 50 staff despite building programme

The Batley campus, part of Kirklees College

A YORKSHIRE college which engaged in a huge building programme is now seeking to make more than 50 staff redundant as it struggles with debt repayments.

Kirklees College, which has campuses in Huddersfield, Batley and Dewsbury, has blamed debt repayments on the building projects and £5m funding cuts for the need to reduce the number of staff.

The equivalent of 56 full-time posts are facing the axe.

College principal Peter McCann said: “Kirklees College, like many other colleges, is facing significant financial challenges.

“The college is having its budget cut by £1.4m in adult learning and £4m in the 16 to 18-year-old provision.”

He said the college had made £4m in savings over the last two years.

Mr McCann said building projects had “added a significant annual repayment to our costs at a time when public sector funding is reducing.”

The college made big investments in a new engineering centre and in the Waterfront Quarter, both in Huddersfield.

A college spokesman said: “We will be doing all we can to minimise job losses including asking staff to come forward for voluntary redundancy, redeployment elsewhere in the college, taking a reduction in hours and/or a less senior role.”

The spokesman said that if the college did not achieve the necessary job reductions through voluntary redundancy “then we may have to make compulsory redundancies.”