V-cs leap to defence of 'united' CVCP

When there was talk of a convergence of the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics and the CVCP, I, as the CDP's public affairs director, was interviewed by the consultants producing a feasibility study.

I suggested bringing together all members of the new body only once a year - for a residential conference. I then suggested that the country should be split into its different regions. The universities within each region would elect one representative to attend monthly or bi-monthly meetings of a management committee in London. This committee would formulate strategy and policy that could later be debated regionally.

The interviewer felt this suggestion had merit but there was no mention of this suggestion when the feasibility report was published. I later asked my interviewer why.

"Great pity," he said. "But when I mentioned this to the CVCP they pooh-poohed it and said it would never work because Cambridge University won't have anything to do with the University of East Anglia, let alone Anglia Polytechnic University."

It would be a pity if the CVCP were to lose its representative voice after such a long and distinguished history. But if it has now fallen foul of its members and is having to face the formation of one splinter group after another, it has only itself to blame.

John Izbicki Dulwich, London