A deal has been struck in which Keighley College's town centre buildings will be sold for £3.8 million.

The college, which is due to build a new £25 million campus, expects to sign the deal with Bradford Council by the end of the month.

The authority will buy the buildings using cash provided through regional development agency Yorkshire Forward.

The college will pay a peppercorn rent to the Council for the next two years while developing its new site in Dalton Lane.

The sale of the two Cavendish Street buildings will clear the way for land deals at the new site.

Negotiations are going on for the Council to buy the Richard Craven electrical store - in the former Station Hotel - at the top of Dalton Lane. The site, next to Keighley railway station, is needed if the new college is to be a flagship building fronting onto Bradford Road.

Council and Government departments believe such a prestigious development will drive the regeneration of the Aire Valley as set out in the area's masterplan.

The new college plan was revealed in April 2003 and should have been ready to open this September but has been plagued by delays.

Architects will meet next Thursday to decide a schedule for submitting a planning application to Bradford Council.

College principal Chris Moore said detailed blueprints had been drawn up but minor changes might be made over the next few weeks.

She said: "The building is a symbol of the quality of further education in Keighley but it's an organisation about people, not bricks and mortar."

And she hoped the new college would be ready for students to move in by 2008.

Councillor Andrew Mallinson, Bradford Council's regeneration chief, said contracts had not yet been finalised for the purchase of the existing college buildings.

He said: "Yorkshire Forward is supplying the money to us to buy the college. The Council will be the accountable body for the building.

"I think we are still some way off getting the new college project underway. I have a meeting with the college within the next month to look at their forward plan and strategy."

A spokesman for Yorkshire Forward said the Council was the most suitable body to buy the existing buildings because it already owned property around the town centre.

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