CITY COLLEGE Brighton and Hove will continue with £36 million redevelopment plans despite missing out on public funding for the scheme.

The further education college will plough on with the long-mooted redevelopment of their Pelham Street site but now in two or three phases after being snubbed for government funding.

The college has been unsuccessful in a £14 million bid to the Coast 2 Capital (C2C) growth fund because of concerns over the size of the scheme compared to the amount of funding available and increased risk around the sale of assets since Brexit.

Chief executive Nick Juba said despite the difficult conditions in the industry, the institution’s finances were stronger than they had been for a number of years.

The college has been looking to redevelop the city centre site for more than eight years with a previous £73 million plan including a ten-storey tower shelved in favour of a slimmed down vision in April.

The site has been mooted to also house the city's new school, to be run by the University of Brighton.

Phase one of the project to build a new arts and technology centre over part of the existing car park could begin in 2017/18 if planning consent is granted and would take around 18 months to build.

The first phase will be funded solely by City College through the sale of land including its Preston Road site but Mr Juba said the college may apply again with C2C for later phases.

Mr Juba said he was “not surprised” that C2C had turned down the application having only recently granted £9 million towards the college’s construction and trades centre in Whitehawk.

He said: “We remain committed to the scheme we shared details of into the public domain, the programme of development of Pelham Street remains unchanged and the only impact is that we will probably approach the scheme in phases.”

Mr Juba added there should be no impact for existing students or for students enrolling for the future despite the delay on updating Pelham Tower which dates from the 1960s and had previously been described as “unfit for 21st century education”.

The college CEO said the biggest issues were not with teaching facilities but with leaks, heating efficiency and a lack of public spaces.

Board meeting minutes from July reveal its financial health remained "on the low end of the satisfactory range" and remained very sensitive to small adverse moments on income and expenditure.

Mr Juba said: “The college has faced a difficult couple of years and we have really worked hard to address that and though we don’t have to publish our accounts until December, I can announce we will be making a small surplus of a couple of hundred thousand pounds which is a fantastic position to be in given where we were a few years ago.

“All colleges are finding it difficult with government cuts making our financial situation extremely challenging and I won’t pretend that City College is in a wonderful position.”