STAFF and students at a college are celebrating a glowing report from Government inspectors as they come towards the end of their first year at a new site.

Last year, New College Durham moved from its cramped split-site home into its £35m campus at Framwellgate Moor, on the outskirts of Durham City.

Despite demolition and construction work for most of the year, inspectors found the college was at least satisfactory in all areas and outstanding in some.

Twenty inspectors from Ofsted and the Adult Learning Inspectorate visited the college earlier this year and spent a week observing 140 classes, all but one of which were deemed satisfactory.

The inspection examined the college's further education and work-based learning courses, which includes about 2,000 of the college's 11,000 students.

It concluded that the teaching of humanities was outstanding and gave good reports to the business, sport, travel and tourism, hairdressing and beauty therapy, care and literacy and numeracy departments.

The remaining areas of the syllabus were deemed satisfactory. The report also praised the college's financial management and strong links with industry.

College principal John Widdowson said: "We are very pleased with the report because of all the things we have done on the site during the last year.

"The report also shows significant improvement over the last few years."