UNIVERSITY FUNDING CRISIS SHOWS
LABOUR HAVE GIVEN UP ON US

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

THE £20 million financial crisis engulfing Cumbria University is proof that the Government “just doesn’t care about Carlisle”, the man who could be the city’s next MP says.

John Stevenson, the city’s Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate, says the crisis – which has led to plans for a £70 million university campus on Carlisle’s Viaduct estate being mothballed for at least ten years – is “a huge blow”.

He says the crisis – following so soon after Carlisle College had to shelve most of its own £30 million rebuilding programme – shows that the Government has “given up on Carlisle”.

“If the Government really cared about Carlisle it would step in and help out,” he says. “But it has chosen to do absolutely nothing.”

          John says the plan to build the University of Cumbria campus and headquarters at the Viaduct – with money provided through the Government-backed Northwest Regional Development Agency – would have been a major fillip for Carlisle.

          So too, he said, would the intended improvements at Carlisle College.

          The fact that the Government’s financial mismanagement has now forced both projects to be dropped is a “double whammy on Carlisle’s higher education establishment”.

“These were two major developments that would have brought enormous benefits not just to the institutions themselves, but to Carlisle and indeed Cumbria as a whole,” he says. “Losing one of them was bad enough, but losing them both is a major blow.”

Cumbria University is expected to submit a bid for £25m of emergency funding to the Higher Education Funding Council within a few weeks. But even if it is successful the money will be used to upgrade existing buildings – not build new ones.

The £30 million Carlisle College project had to be abandoned in December after funding promised by the Government was withdrawn – even though by then large parts of the old college had been demolished in preparation.

A much smaller project, costing just a fraction of the cost, is now likely to go ahead instead.

          “The debacle over the College was bad enough,” John says. “But this latest one over the university is even worse.

          “The Government just don’t seem to care about Carlisle. You begin the think that Labour have given up on us.”

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