Newton Rigg Ltd working on Plan B as partner colleges unable to commit

“As stated previously, Newton Rigg Ltd has been working on securing a college partnership that would facilitate a successful Bid for the educational future of Newton Rigg College, in the FEC’s strategic review, with the deadline of this Friday 29th. 

Despite enormous efforts from all involved, including the potential college partner who pursued every possible avenue to facilitate Newton Rigg’s  future, we now know it will not be possible to finalise a college agreement that would enable our visionary Bid to be approved by the FEC. This means that, our Bid cannot, for now, proceed as planned. The liabilities associated with the transfer from Askham Bryan College, and the uncertainties regarding the finances, pose too great a risk for a partner college to be expected to bear. 

However, we have prepared for this unfortunate outcome and can confirm that the fight is not over. Newton Rigg Ltd are now entirely focused on ‘Plan B’. We are confident that our investment partners have the will and the funds to purchase the Newton Rigg assets, in a collaborative initiative that would provide an alternative route to securing the future of land-based education, skills training and apprenticeships at Newton Rigg on a meaningful scale, while enabling continued access to the farms for students to complete their studies. While we cannot confirm solid details yet, we will describe our plans to the community as soon as possible. 

We are confident that we can preserve Newton Rigg for Cumbria  and we will work with our many individual, corporate and local industry supporters to make this happen. We will also be discussing our Plan B with the FEC, to highlight that an alternative solution for Newton Rigg could be supported by Askham Bryan College as part of their intended disposal of the assets."