'This is the most significant set of issues for our young people since the 1980s'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

There will be a 'real, urgent and complex' situation facing Manchester’s teenagers next year. A lack of places to study all manner of qualifications at sixth form has hit a crisis point, with the city’s biggest further education provider already turning 200 hopefuls away from its landmark new campus.

By 2025, demand will outstrip its 6,000-student capacity, a new report has warned. The LTE Group, which runs The Manchester College, says the situation is ‘the most significant set of issues for our young people since the 1980’s’ — and is now pleading with local and national governments to step in. READ MORE: Father and son arrested at Manchester Airport as their international empire comes crashing down It says the problem stems from the fact that to build new infrastructure, it is required to ‘match fund’ any cash it gets from the Department for Education (DfE), a recent report to Manchester City Council claims. “Whilst two of the three bids were successful (for Openshaw and Wythenshawe), the bids were capped at a £4m contribution from the DfE per bid with the requirement for the LTE Group to provide the ‘match’ funding – another £4m per bid. “Given the LTE Group has already self-funded the majority of its estate strategy to date spending more than £100m, it was not able to further borrow money [to] find the match required.” That requirement to find its own cash was insisted upon despite ‘previous, very significant match funding rates’ for other projects, it added.

In effect, it’s ‘something akin to asking the NHS to self-fund new hospitals’, the LTE continued - although the government deny that money exclusively comes match-funded for further education.