The Fairview site of the former South West College (SWC) Enniskillen campus is to be sold, it has been confirmed.

When asked this week by The Impartial Reporter of the plans for the now vacant former college site, following the relocation to the new SWC Erne Campus on the Cornagrade Road, Enniskillen, Eimear Grugan, Project Sponsor explained that the site will be up for sale.

“First of all we have to say that the funding for this [the building of the new SWC Erne Campus] came from the Department for the Economy,” she said, noting how the Department has been “very supportive” the whole way through.

“It’s a £30 million project, it’s fantastic to have that investment here in Enniskillen but then the other side of that is they obviously want to recoup some of their investment, I suppose for development of other Further Education (FE) colleges.

“We therefore have to sell Fairview and then proceeds of the sale, that money then returns to the Department for the Economy and that gets reinvested in the whole FE sector.”

She went on to outline how there is specialist method for “disposing” of public sector property.

“It goes through the Land and Property Services (LPS) so basically it’s offered to the public sector first to see if they have any interest, then declarations of interest are made within a two or three week period.

“After that, if the public sector isn’t interested, it goes on the private market but again LPS will advise us how to dispose of this properly.”

With there being nine different plots making up the old Fairview property, Eimear explained that it needs to be disposed of in a sensitive way.

“In a way that you’re not going to stymie any development. There will be a whole strategy in terms of how it is disposed of. It might all go in one piece or if it’s going in parts then there has to be a strategy.

“I can’t tell you who will be buying it in the long run, there’s just a whole process we have to go through before we get to that stage,” she told this newspaper.