Bradford College lecturers have been left angered by proposals to change their working practices, a union says.

Julie Kelley, regional official for the University and College Union, which represents 500 lecturers at the college, said that proposals, that potentially could include Saturday working, were strongly opposed by members and warned of tricky times ahead.

The Telegraph & Argus exclusively revealed on Wednesday that the college had been given the go-ahead for a £50 million scheme to build a state-of-the-art facility in front of the Westbrook building. It will house Westbrook, McMillan Building, Appleton and the Old Building and is expected to open in September 2014.

The college is in talks with unions about contracts becoming more flexible because the new building is expected to be open 48 weeks a year.

But Mrs Kelley said that there was going to be difficulty negotiating with the unions in the forthcoming year, because changes were expected to be introduced as soon as September.

“There is some very radical changes that the college is wanting to introduce to contracts and, of course, we are opposed fundamentally to some they are wanting to introduce,” she said.

Changes could include increased teaching hours, changes to holidays, and making the normal working week to include Saturday.

“Generally there has been horror at some of the proposals being made and staff are concerned,” she said.

“They are not just lying down and putting up with it, this is a set of detrimental changes and some proposals shouldn’t get through.” On the subject of reduced space, Mrs Kelley said that she was worried that the issue of hot-desking, where no-one has a specific desk and has to carry their resources around with them, may rear its head again. From our perspective we want to ensure members of staff have an adequate facility to do their job properly,” she said.

Stuart Herdson, branch secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which has 40 members at the college, said he had issues with split shifts. “Opening 48 weeks a year would be OK if people still had the same amount of holiday,” he said. “Working Saturdays would be novel and I can’t see people wanting to do that for all sorts of reasons such as family.”

A spokesman for Bradford College said a new contract with lecturing staff was being pursued because reductions in Government funding for education mean that it had to deliver more for less.

“This means we need to look at how we can free up restrictive practices in the current contract to allow our lecturing staff to deliver the curriculum more efficiently,” the spokesman said.

“We opened negotiations last summer and have allowed a full academic year to reach agreement.

“We have had productive discussions with UCU so far and hope that these will progress in the next few months and are aiming to deliver a contract which recognises the professionalism of our staff, allows us to attract and retain the best lecturers for our students and also allows us to deploy staff efficiently and effectively."