Senior councillors in Ceredigion have given officers the go ahead to move forward with plans for Lampeter’s university campus, but concerns have been raised over transparency of the scheme.

A report was put before the council cabinet on Tuesday on plans to convert the former Lampeter university site into a post-16 vocational education site, providing a range of courses, which will work alongside the council-owned Llettytwppa farm,

Talks between University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Ceredigion council have been ongoing for a year, but this was the first time the scheme had come before cabinet.

Cllr Elizabeth Evans said: “The provision of vocational courses in Lampeter should be welcomed.

“Reading through the paper, there’s a governance structure going to be put in place. That needs to be in place now and we need to be scrutinising it now.

“Basic questions like how many students do we need to make a course viable.

“Are we developing a catering college in Lampeter given that there is one in Aberystwyth and Cardigan now.

“The paper is full of words like opportunities, coulds, shoulds, so you can understand why I’m feeling why I feel we should be scrutinising it.”

Chief Executive responded saying: “We have to remember the campus is property of Trinity Saint David.

“We have created an executive board and they look at how the campus can be delivered.

“We need to be clear what we mean by governance.”

Cllr Evans: “I fully understand what governance means I can assure you and that’s about checks and balances.

“We do not own that campus so we need to know where our lines of delineation are.

“We have a working group that needs to transition into governance as it is public money.

“Are we setting up a catering college?”

Eifion Evans said: “One of our ambitions is to create a centre of excellence for gastronomy. We’re not talking here about basic level catering, we’re talking about future chefs.

“Linking to using the produce from Llettytwppa.”

Cllr Evans said: “At the end of the day, a chef needs basic catering skills.”

Corporate Director, Barry Rees, told the meeting: “We have invested quite a lot of officer time into this.

“If we want courses in September 2027 we need to move very quickly. “We need to get courses decided by Christmas.”

Former council leader, Cllr Keith Evans, also spoke, saying: “I support the proposal but not the manner in which you’ve done it.

“This is the first time this scheme has come to cabinet.

“There are so many things up in the air.

“From what I read many months ago, it was £2.5 million to maintain the Lampeter campus.

“I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the way the scheme has run.”

Eifion Evans responded: “Just to be clear and factually correct, a lot of money has not been spent.

“The only money that has been spent is on Llettytwppa.”

The Plaid Cymru Cabinet voted unanimously to authorise officers to continue working with UWTSD to further develop proposals.