West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has held talks with the management team at Warwickshire College Group as it considers a bid to take over the Malvern Hills College site.

Harriett has supported the community-led bid which will see the formation of a new company to take over the site and preserve teaching and save jobs.

This week, Harriett also met with Skills Minister Gillian Keegan and a representative of the Education and Skills Funding Agency to discuss the bid and to confirm that Malvern Hills District Council will have the final decision on enforcing the covenant which prevents the building being sold off for alternative developments.

Harriett commented:

“I am grateful for the time that the management team gave to discuss this matter and I am glad that we had constructive talks.

“The chairman wrote to me setting out some of the current sticking points and I wanted to go through these in person to understand what we, as politicians, and the bid team need to do to move this forward.

“I’m also grateful that Worcestershire County Councillor Marc Baylis who is the Cabinet Member for Skills is prepared to look at ways to help unblock the talks.

“All levels of government want to see teaching preserved at Malvern Hills College and I was keen to make sure that the Warwickshire College Group chairman got that message loud and clear.

“The bid team now have some urgent actions to carry out and I’ll be following up with Malvern Hills District Council to make sure that we do all we can to keep the college operating and jobs saved.”

Peter Manford, chair of the Governors of the WCG, said:

“We welcomed the opportunity to meet with Harriett and to reiterate that we have taken this step very reluctantly and that we too would like to see the education provision continued in the town.

“However, there are certain responsibilities we have to fulfil as governors and with any bid we have to make sure that that they are fully met.

“We were able to run through those with Harriett and Marc, and we look forward to hearing back from them, interested parties and the district council.”