ONE of Hampshire's fastest growing colleges is set to make job cuts as bosses battle a £1.6m debt.

Up to 14 members of staff from all areas of Fareham College will be in the firing line.

Principal Carl Groves denied the redundancies were part of plans to merge the college with the struggling St Vincent College in Gosport which recently forced up to 40 teachers to consider voluntary redundancies because of a falling number of students.

The proposed plan by education bosses would see the two colleges close to form a single £30m education centre.

Mr Groves said: "This is being done because as a college we don't want to have a deficit, we want a modest surplus. Yes, we want to be in as strong a position as possible if a merger does happen but as an individual college we need to be run efficiently.

"Fortunately we are in a position as a college where we are becoming more and more popular, and we are the fastest-growing college in Hampshire.

"Therefore we do not have to cut costs further due to the increasing amount of students at the college. We have a ten per cent increase in students next year.

"The purpose of the restructuring is twofold. We want to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the college and provide the best service for our students.

"The job losses will only be a maximum of 14 jobs out of a total staff of 250 and will be balanced across different areas of the college."

Staff will know whether or not their jobs are safe by the beginning of next month.