A South Otago mayor says he is furious with Lincoln University over its plans for major staff cuts at an agricultural training college.
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Lincoln University vice chancellor Robin Pollard today told staff at its Telford campus near Balclutha the university plans to cut 17 jobs and is trying to transfer the whole site to another education insitution.
Four academic positions and 13 support roles would be cut, which is one-third of the campus' total staff.
Telford was started more than 50 years ago as a central agricultural training centre for Otago and Southland, and has its own act of Parliament.
It was merged into Lincoln University in 2011, and since then student numbers have fallen from 1300 to about 500.
Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan said Telford was the jewel in the district's crown.
"It is such an integrated part of the history of the Clutha district.", Mr Cadogan said.
"For anyone to be tampering around with it - I'm furious with Lincoln for the situation they are now putting Telford under."
Mr Cadogan said he did not know what went wrong, but since the university took over the student numbers had plummetted.
"Their linkage with Lincoln was meant to further Telford's future ... it's been a debacle."
He said he had been talking to a range of other stakeholders about Telford, and they were determined to fight for it.
The Tertiary Education Union said it was appalled by the cuts, and how staff have been treated by the university, with a lack of care and respect.
The union said Lincoln's leadership had been unstable for a long time, but the cuts proposed were illogical as they would make the campus less attractive to other institutions.
But Prof Pollard told RNZ it was necessary to cut Telford's staff by a third because of the big drop in agricultural student demand.
He said the merger hadn't worked out as hoped and intended, in part because of the Christchurch earthquakes which struck just afterwards.
He said Lincoln wanted to find an institution Telford will fit with better.
Prof Pollard said he understood there was resentment that his university received $10 million from Telford at the time of the merger, but that money was spent, and the university was trying to give the college a solid future.