It’s university challenged!

It’s tempting to stick the boot into the plans for Peterborough’s university. Today’s in-depth report in the Peterborough Telegraph details just how big is the gap between what we were promised and what we are going to get.

The city has long been promised a university and it has been plain to see by even the uneducated (ho, ho) that it was a huge missing piece in the city’s jigsaw.

The aggressive growth strategy that has seen a big rise in the city’s population has merely served to underline that.

Finally, there seemed to be a way ahead with the creation of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined

Authority.

In return for Peterborough joining, the city was promised a fully fledged university.

Whether you call it a bribe, or whether you call it an incentive, it was a persuasive reason.

But it is only now emerging that all is not as was promised and that has caused disquiet in some quarters.

The alarm bells began with the name – not the simple but definitive University of Peterborough but ARU (Anglian Ruskin University) Peterborough.

Add to that it will be seven years later than advertised (at least) before it is independent and that the target number of students has been slashed by more than half from 12,500 to 5,000 and the promises suddenly seem a little, if not empty, then half full.

Sadly, these days a story headlined POLITICIANS FAIL TO DELIVER PROMISES is unlikely to cause even a ripple.

But it is right that the politicians are challenged on our university.

And regardless of this disappointing downgrading the creation of a university remains hugely important for the city.

So I don’t want to lecture you (did you see what I did there?) but I believe we all have to give even these watered-down proposals our full support.

It’s a matter of degrees.