THE Houghall college campus, on the outskirts of Durham City, could be sold off and a new college developed elsewhere in the county.

East Durham and Houghall Community College is to commission consultants to look at options for the 500-acre site in countryside near Shincliffe, which is home to the college's land-based courses.

Work is under way on the £40m redevelopment of the college's Howletch site, in Peterlee, to improve what it can offer to its students.

Houghall's facilities include a farm, garden, equine and small animal centres, and a renowned arboretum.

The campus has about 1,000 students and 100 full-time staff.

Principal and chief executive Ian Prescott said Houghall, which was an agricultural college until its merger with the then East Durham College in 1999, needed new buildings.

He said options that consultants would study ranged from keeping things as they were, to improving facilities at Houghall, to selling the site and starting from scratch elsewhere.

"We need to update our buildings because they are tired. I think it is an excellent opportunity to build a new land-based college,'' Mr Prescott said.

Dismissing fears that jobs might go, he added that the aim would be to increase student and staff numbers.

He also said that planning restrictions - it is in green belt - and covenants would rule out a big housing development.

He said the arboretum would stay and pointed out that development could only take place within the footprint of existing buildings.

The college's governors would consider the consultants' report before the end of the year.

Dr Douglas Pocock, secretary of the City of Durham Trust, the city's conservation organisation, said: "I think our trustees will be very alarmed by this, even though it is only at an early stage.

"I wonder what they could do with the site. It is in the green belt and it is an Area of High Landscape Value. It does seem as if Durham is going through a phase, as it did in the Eighties, in which every piece of green is taken out.''

A spokesman for Durham City Council said the council's planning department was unaware of any redevelopment proposals for Houghall.