It is welcome news that Bradford College is hoping to spend up to £60 million on new buildings and facilities to expand its campus, if a bid for funding expected to be made in the new year to the Learning and Skills Council meets with a positive response.

It is encouraging that after a few lean years during which both it and the university had trouble attracting students, the college now feels confident enough to be proposing such a significant expansion scheme. It is good, too, that it plans to invest at least some of the money in the heart of Bradford by expanding the campus towards the city, which fits in well with Bradford Centre Regeneration's masterplan idea of a learning zone.

A growing number of local people are taking further education seriously and are seeking to pursue it at their local college while continuing to live at home. And why not, when that local college has a reputation as good as that of Bradford's?

There is plenty that is interesting in the plans. New facilities for teaching construction and engineering courses, the creation of a new sports centre, gym and pitches, a hair and beauty salon and training kitchen...These are all excellent ideas which should make the college even more attractive to students from the locality and beyond.

The college is probably wise to have ruled out refurbishment of the existing facilities and to have set its sites on new buildings. As principal and chief executive Michele Sutton says, Bradford is about to embark on a new era. The college is right to be seeking to play an important role in that era.