Pledge: A new Newton Rigg college could be on the cards A NEW independent agricultural college is on the cards for Cumbria. That s the pledge from a group fighting to prevent the 125-year-old Newton Rigg agricultural college from closure in the summer with more than 100 jobs losses. This week the Further Education Commissioner deemed the Penrith college financially unviable and found no suitable bids were received to take it over. More than 500 students and apprentices attend but the FEC said most courses and training could be found elsewhere. Owner Askham Bryan College in York plans to sell the site when it closes in July.
A NEW independent agricultural college is on the cards for Cumbria. That s the pledge from a group fighting to save125-year-old Newton Rigg college from closure in the summer with more than 100 jobs losses. Yesterday the Further Education Commissioner announced it deemed the Penrith college financially unviable and found no suitable bids were received to take it over. More than 500 students and apprentices attend, but the FEC said most courses and training could be found elsewhere. Owner Askham Bryan College in York plans to sell the site when it closes in July. However, chairman of one of two bids submitted in a bid to save the college, Newton Rigg Limited, Professor Andrew Cobb, made the following statement: It’s time to move beyond the Strategic Review. Our financial partners, who share our commitment to Newton Rigg’s future, will now seek to purchase the campus from Askham Bryan thus facilitating our 3-5-year strategy: A new dawn of Newton Rigg-led training a
A group set up to save Newton Rigg College said it still had confidence in its plans to buy the campus. It was announced yesterday that the Further Education Commissioner-led Newton Rigg Strategic Review concluded it had been unable to identify an organisation to continue delivering sustainable land-based education at.
By Luke Jarmyn Audience and Content Editor (Business)
Educational provision will end at Newton Rigg College FORMER Workington MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Baroness Sue Hayman is calling for a Parliamentary inquiry into the controversial closure of the county’s only agricultural college. The peer, a member of the Defra Select Committee, is lobbying for an inquiry in a bid to reverse the closure decision of Newton Rigg this summer. She is joined by former Workington MP, Dale Campbell-Savours and Lord David Clark of Windermere, who in a statement said they are raising questions into the finances of the doomed college.