A college which was losing about £100,000 a month has received an £8 million-commitment following its takeover.

Braintree College, now called the College at Braintree, had a total debt of about £4 million when it merged with Colchester Institute earlier this month.

And it is believed the deficit could actually rise as it is still being unravelled.

Danny Clough, principal of the Institute and now the college, said the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) assumed liability for the debt at the point of merger and would also be providing about £4 million in a merger support fund.

He believed it would take until at least 2011/12 to sort the issues at the college out, using “two lines of attack” on the deficit, which he said was probably run up over three/four years.

He said: “One is try and see more income for the College at Braintree and next is to try and see what kind of costs we can take away from the operation as well.”

While he did not yet know whether there would be any redundancies at Braintree, he did not think there would be “any huge cull of staff”.

About 20 members of staff opted for a voluntary severance scheme before the merger.

“And clearly if we are to expand the amount of education and training we are involved with we might look at more teaching staff rather than fewer,” he said.

•An open event is taking place at the College at Braintree next Wednesday.