The National Star College in Gloucestershire, one of the country’s independent specialist colleges working with learners who have severe physical disabilities, is stunned by the Government’s announcement that 50% funding already promised has been withdrawn.

This has meant its modernisation building work at the 350 student establishment, has been halted.

Thirteen general further education colleges around the UK, all of them in Labour constituencies and catering predominantly for able-bodied students, will get the go-ahead with projects that were suspended earlier this year following the Learning & Skills Counci’s management of its further education capital investment programme.

It transpired that the LSC had committed itself to more projects than it actually had the budget to fund.

The National Star College, based at Ullenwood, near Cheltenham, had already raised or secured pledges of £5m towards its share of the money needed to upgrade and build new accommodation and therapy facilities, and at least £2m of the money pledged by supporters now also stands at risk.

The College’s campus, with half incomplete building work and ugly ground preparations look set to remain as they are potentially for the next foreseeable years, until the charity can raise the £5m plus that the LSC were due to contribute towards the next phases of the development or other funding can be found.

According to the College’s chief executive and principal, Helen Sexton, herself the chair of the Association of National Specialist Colleges (Natspec), the college’s staff and students have been shocked by the announcement.

A key driver behind the modernisation work, which would have been complete for the September 2010 first year students, was to provide improved capacity and facilities for those with increasingly severe disabilities who not only require greater care provision in terms of staff but more complex, specialist accommodation requirements.

“I find it extraordinary that a college that plays a key role in specialist provision for disabled learners nationally, regionally and locally should be struck off the list of priorities, despite the Government’s commitment to equality for disabled people and their entitlement to appropriate specialist provision” she said.