AMBITIOUS plans by Burnley College to move into a multi-million-pound new home could be scuppered because it can't get funding to pay for the move.

The planned £40million move from the aging 1909 Ormerod Road base to a new town centre site will only be half paid for by government.

That will leave the college to find an unrealistic £20million, a sum that will not be covered by the sale of the current base which is worth less than £1million.

If the college is forced to abandon the plans it will leave three out of four students who go on to further education being taught in old and cramped conditions at a time when secondary schools are being revamped as part of the Building Schools for the Future scheme.

Under BSF the new multi-faith sixth form will be entirely funded by the Learning and Skills Council, a discrepancy Burnley College principal John Smith says is unfair.

He has now written to the Learning and Skills Council, the government quango responsible for over-16s education, to ask them to look at the anomaly.

The college is also unhappy that any move would have to be part-funded by a loan from the LSC, which would leave it with debt repayments of £500,000 a year - money which would come from teaching budgets.

The plight will also be raised by Burnley councillor Peter Kenyon who will put a motion before full council this week asking for support for the college.

The need to move has been backed by both Ofsted, who gave the college a glowing report but pointed out the cramped accommodation, and the college's own consultants, employed to look into a move, as well as the Lancashire Learning and Skills Council.

The move has been planned for two years and the funding difficulties have always been known to college bosses who are now calling for government funding rules to be changed.

Today they admitted without the rule change the college could be stuck at its present site.

Mr Smith said: "The funding arrangements for colleges are much less generous than they are for schools. The problem we have is that our site is not worth very much money, because it is a listed building. If we get at most 50 per cent from the Learning and Skills Council that leaves us with £20million to find and where are we going to get that?

"The Learning and Skills Council also requires us to take out loan finance of 40 per cent of our turnover, which would be about £6million. That would leave us paying back money which would have to come out of education budgets.

"This amounts to unequal treatment of school sixth forms and colleges by the government.

"We cater for three out of four school leavers but unless the upper limit of the Learning and Skills Council funding is bust we are going to have difficulty finding the money to pay for the move."

Mr Smith has also written to all Burnley's Prospective Parliamentary Candidates asking them to say they will campaign publicly for adequate funding for a new college.

Coun Kenyon said: "Burnley College's ambitions are pretty fundamental for the future economic health of the borough because we are losing a lot of clever people who go outside the area for higher education and do not return and also because the college is working with people who are not academic high-fliers to improve their skills, the sort of people that employers who we want to attract into the area are looking for. I would like to see the government address the unfair funding."

Peter Kenyon's motion will go before council on Wednesday.