PLANS to create a sixth-form college to boost staying-on rates in East Durham have run into opposition from the area's main college.

School heads in the area want to form a college of excellence in the area to lift its low levels of post-16 education and exam success.

Long term, they hope to build a centre, but in the meantime would expand the sixth form at St Bede's Roman Catholic School, in Peterlee, and re-name it Byron Sixth Form College.

But East Durham and Houghall Community College, based at Peterlee and Durham, is opposing the idea.

In consultations, the college said the plan would have a serious impact on it.

The college challenged the legal and statutory basis on which the proposal was based, and said that it should be the focus of any new development as it is looking at the possibility of rebuilding its main campus.

A college spokesman said: "The college is not fully aware of what is actually being set up. It appears that the so-called Byron Sixth Form College is little more than a re-launch of what was St Bede's Sixth Form."

He said that a report on post-16 education and training in the county, by Jim Donaldson former Chief Inspector of Colleges and Sixth Forms, concluded that institutions such as Byron College are a bad idea because they do not offer a sufficiently broad curriculum and students suffer as a result.

Durham County Council's cabinet has welcomed the proposal to develop St Bede's sixth form in the interim.

Councillor Alan Barker said: "Educational maintenance allowances are coming in and they will help improve staying-on rates. We don't want students going to Sunderland or Hartlepool.''