Exeter College and Petroc will merge in the new year to create what they say will be the largest college group in the South West with more than 16,000 students, nearly 2,000 staff and an annual turnover of £100 million.
Following approval by each college’s board of governors, the new organisation – Exeter and North Devon Colleges Group – will begin operations on 5 January.
Exeter College will keep its name and continue to provide sixth form education at its main campus in Hele Road and at several other smaller sites across the city.
Petroc’s Barnstaple campus will become North Devon College while its Tiverton campus, a specialist centre for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, is to be renamed the Centre for Progression.
Exeter College and Petroc campuses map. Image: Exeter College and Petroc.
Exeter College and Petroc governors agreed the merger in principle in April this year following four months of discussions held to explore “what a deeper collaboration might look like” between the two.
The colleges said a period of due diligence would follow in which they would seek advice from external consultants on the “detailed legal, financial and strategic” consequences of the merger.
They described it as part of the “direction of travel nationally” for “fewer, larger place-based college groups”
Exeter College and Petroc merger consultation outcome
A public consultation on the merger held in September produced just over 300 responses of which more than three-quarters were submitted via Petroc.
Two-thirds of respondents supported the merger, and only 11% disagreed.
A prospectus published in support of the consultation said that Exeter College’s annual turnover is almost £75 million and Petroc’s £31 million, and that “despite financial challenges” Petroc expects to return to “good financial health”.
The prospectus also said there are 12,500 students and 1,200 staff at Exeter College and 4,500 students and 650 staff at Petroc.
The merger, which is a voluntary process, was described by Exeter College as a “unique opportunity to strengthen further education across Devon and the wider South West”.
Exeter College in Hele Road. Photo: Tom Joliffe under Creative Commons licence.
Exeter College was established as a tertiary college in the 1970s but has its origins in two schools opened as part of RAMM in 1869.
A 2022 Ofsted report, which judged it outstanding, said the college was then educating 6,640 sixteen to eighteen year-olds as well as 1,800 apprentices and 880 adults: a total of just over 9,300 students.
Petroc, which was created by the 2008 merger of North Devon College and East Devon College, covers a catchment area of 1,500 square miles.
An October 2024 Osted inspection, which graded Petroc as requiring improvement, said 2,273 young adults were enrolled at the college alongside 651 apprentices and 408 adult students, totalling just over 3,300 students.
