THE information source for the University of Bath's plan to move into Swindon makes positive noises about funding, all sounding as if being granted the funding in a certainty, a mere formality. However, in the real world, the financial outlook is much bleaker.

Vice-chancellors, in a recent article in The Times, claim that to plug a national funding shortfall of nearly £10 billion they are being forced to take increasingly desperate steps.

Even if the top-up fees measure can be pushed through, elite institutions like Southampton University have been forced to close courses and departments and sell off campuses.

There is somewhat of academic snobbery about the word university. New players cannot have the patina of age no instant ivy-clad walls or weathered stone but the next best thing is a "campus", to bring the institution even further from its vocational roots. Campuses, however, are expensive to build and promised money is, famously, never enough.

Look at the Scottish Parliament. If major players like Southampton University (founded 1862) are short of funds from the Higher Education Council for England, then recent players, the Johnnie-come-latelies of the academic world, won't fair any better.

The question that must arise is about the future of Coate if the campus never materialises. The campus was supposed to be the essential reason for the despoliation of Coate.

But what if planning permission is given to the developers and the campus is never built. Is Swindon going to feel betrayed once more, as it was over the hospital?

Nancy Harrison

Highworth