Major projects including a sports hall in Frizinghall and a digital centre in Shipley have been shelved following the Government’s delay in £15 million funding for an expansion of Shipley College.

They have been put on ice along with plans for a Tourist Information Centre in Victoria Road, Saltaire, after the college was named among 144 nationally which saw funding frozen by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

The LSC had approved projects for 79 colleges, totalling £2.7 billion more than it could afford.

Shipley College’s new principal, Nav Chohan, 45, told the Telegraph & Argus, the college had already employed architects to draw up plans for the multi-million pound schemes before the LSC announced it could no longer fund the project.

He said: “All the capital plans were about expansion, about building some new facilities including some in the centre of Shipley.

“Some of the money was to upgrade facilities and for a sports centre in Frizinghall. There was also supposed to be a digital centre in Shipley and the proposed Tourist Information Centre in Saltaire.

“Over and above the amount of time that has gone into it there has also been architects’ fees and fees from working with a range of partners.

“There is the sense that the momentum of development has been lost and that is the greatest shame.”

He said smaller projects in Saltaire could go ahead if a bid being prepared for the Heritage Lottery Fund was successful, but said the major projects would not happen in the next year.

As previously reported in the T&A, Bradford College has also fallen victim to the funding freeze.

College chiefs expressed “dismay and frustration” after a new £120 million campus was put on hold, even after it had been approved by the LSC’s National Capital Committee.

The final project, which was set to be an integral part of Bradford’s Learning Quarter, cost more than £2 million to prepare.

Bradford College principal Michele Sutton OBE said: “After receiving assurances by the LSC throughout the process that funding would be available, this news comes as a very nasty shock.”

e-mail: marc.meneaud@telegraphandargus.co.uk

Career profile:

London-born Nav Chohan took over as principal of Shipley College when Jean McCallister retired in July.

He has spent 16 years in Further Education, including 12 years at the former Leeds College of Technology, now Leeds City College.

He has also worked as a project manager for the NHS in Edinburgh.