Despite the credit crunch plans for a "super campus" in Glasgow are to go ahead according to the Scottish Funding Council.

The proposed campus will be the UK's biggest further education building project. It will involve Central, Stow, Metropolitan and Glasgow Nautical College and provide for 50,000 students and 2,000 staff.

The campus will be built at two sites in Cathedral Street and Thistle Street.


It is believed the colleges will eventually merge to form the largest further education establishment in Scotland.

Mark Batho, chief executive of the Scottish funding council said: "Our planning is based upon a number of assumptions, the most critical of which are that costs are kept tightly under control as the planning proceeds and that current levels of capital spending for colleges are carried forward into the next spending review.

"As long as those assumptions are met, it's all systems go - it's budgeted for and planned for."

The new campus will go out to tender this month. Architects are expected to be appointed by next spring. The campus is scheduled for completion in 2016.

(GK/JM)