THIS July, as things stand, Newton Rigg College will close its doors for the last time, bringing an end to 125 years of learning. Generations of farmers have cut their agricultural teeth on what has been described as the ‘Pride of Cumbria’. The county is the second largest producer of both red meat and milk in the country. It’s flagship seat of learning could soon disappear. The success of former students in farming and other business cannot be measured, but what can is the anger and sadness within the agricultural community over the decision, by its owner and education chiefs, to close the Penrith college for good.
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05/04/2021
Business leaders and trade unionists have come together to condemn a move by York-based Askham Bryan College to close its campus at Newton Rigg.
The Yorkshire college plans to sell off the Penrith campus and its assets to bolster its own flagging finances.
But supporters from the business and trades union sector said this week that Newton Rigg had served the county well as a centre of land-based learning for more than a century and will be even more important in the future as agriculture changes to meet food production, environmental and trading challenges.
Newton Rigg campus. THE closure of Cumbria s only agricultural college has been condemned by trade union leaders as an act of educational vandalism . A motion condemning the sell-off of Newton Rigg College at Penrith was passed at last weekend’s Northern TUC Conference, moved and seconded by Penrith and the Border Labour Party members Iain Owens and Karen Lockney. The conference condemned the decision of owners, Askham Bryan College, York, supported by the FE Commissioner and the Department for Education to close the college. It was resolved that the TUC Northern Executive would write to the governors of Askham Bryan, the Secretary of State for Education and the FE Commissioner condemning the ‘act of educational vandalism’, and to seek support from the shadow Secretaries of State for Education, and Food and Rural Affairs for opposition to the closure.