SPARSHOLT College near Winchester could lose £1.3m after doubts emerged about the future of an ambitious redevelopment project.

The college wants to spend £100m on upgrading its main campus north west of Winchester and its other site at Andover.

But its plans were dealt a blow when a national funding scheme to provide campuses with state-of-the-art facilities was suspended.

Martin Simmons, vice-principal at the college, said it had hoped to get around 90 per cent of its project money from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

However the LSC has announced there is only enough money to fund redevelopment projects at eight colleges nationally, meaning 144 – including Sparsholt – will have to wait to hear their fate.

Sparsholt College revealed it had already paid out £1.3m in submitting applications for the project, including fees for architects, surveyors and specialist engineers.

Mr Simmons said: “If we are not able to get that money back then the money we have spent is not available for other investment opportunities.”

The college had expected to get approval for the grants this month and have builders on site by February next year. He said the delay could mean students move into their new facilities in 2012, a year later than planned.

“There’s uncertainty and there are concerns about the timescales that might be involved in bringing this project to fruition,” he added. “We also have concerns about whether all of our projects will be passed or if we’ll have to reduce the scale of them.”

The college’s plans involve building a new teaching block and sports hall and upgrading the engineering and horticultural facilities at its Sparsholt site. It also wants to build a new ‘campus development’ at Andover.

Mr Simmons said bosses believed by merging Sparsholt and Andover (formerly Cricklade) colleges – which happened in 2007 – they would have easier access to Government money.

He said: “We are disappointed because we had been led to believe that one of the carrots for the merger was full Government support for the two capital projects.

“We understand nationally the situation has changed and we had to deal with the toxic debts of the banks, so these projects have been a casualty of the credit crunch.

“The facilities (at Sparsholt) have been there for many years and stretching them out for another couple of years would not be disastrous but students would be better off in a more modern teaching environment.”

He added he was reasonably confident of getting capital funding from the LSC, especially for Andover because it has been labelled a priority for regeneration money.

A LSC spokesman confirmed that the cost of all the applications it received had exceeded the scheme’s budget.

He added: “Eight colleges have been given the go-ahead because they had reached the furthest possible stage of the approval process. The review of the other 144 will proceed at the fastest possible pace.”

Southampton City College, Totton College, Brockenhurst College, Taunton’s College and Itchen College have also had money withheld.