A new principal has been appointed at North Shropshire College.

Ian Clinton OBE will take over from Peter McCann, who was appointed in an interim position nine months ago to oversee a turnaround at the college which has campuses in Oswestry, Walford, Shipley and Burford.

Mr McCann said: “I have enjoyed every moment of my nine months at North Shropshire College and it has been a great honour to work in this wonderful community, with an excellent team of colleagues.

“The college has made excellent improvements over the past year as evidenced in the four national inspections of our Higher Education, residential care, teaching and learning, and nursery provision during this period.

“It was always planned that I would finish my tenure at this time, and Ian Clinton is a top-class principal who will continue to drive improvement.”

The new appointment comes just days after it was announced a merger with Reaseheath College in Nantwich because of a lack in long-term funding.

Gillian Richards, chairman of the Governors, said: “Peter has been an outstanding principal, who has made huge improvements at the college and we continue to go from strength to strength.

“We are sorry to see Peter go, but this was planned from the outset of his appointment.

“The Board has found an excellent successor in Ian Clinton, and we are all looking forward to continuing on our successful trajectory while we work to identify the best partner to work with in future.

“The Board is delighted with the achievements the college has enjoyed, and we expect these will continue, through first-class leadership of the team of committed professionals that work at the college.”

Last month, saw NSC celebrate its last A-Level results day after making a move to vocational qualifications with 15 out of the 18 A-Level courses available seeing a 100 per cent pass rate.