Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College miss out on a promised £40 grant to rebuild

Jul 2 2009 by John Siddle, Ormskirk Advertiser

THE GOVERNMENT was last night slammed for backtracking on a promise to fund the £40m rebuild of Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College

Furious education chiefs and politicians vented their anger at Gordon Brown, whose party has refused to hand over cash to create a world-class learning facility on Northway.

That may have opened by 2010, to re-place the current college on Yewdale.

Instead, the college’s visionary plans are today left in tatters after Whitehall-backed quango, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) went back on its pledge to deliver the grant.

It means that college chiefs spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on preparatory work for a project that will not see the light of day until at least 2011 – but probably a lot longer than that.

A spokesman for the college, which also has a site on Hants Lane, Ormskirk, said: “We are very disappointed that our building projects have not been included in the recent list of colleges awarded capital funding.

“However, at this stage, we have not given up hope that a solution can be found.”