Foot care feels the takeover pinch

The University of Westminster's threatened podiatric medicine division could be taken over by the University of Brunel. Plans to close the division were announced earlier this year but have met strong opposition from staff who have sent a 500-name petition to prime minister John Major.

Now director of the podiatric division, Janet Shanks, has revealed that the department is talking with Brunel Univer-sity about a possible takeover.

The division, one of Britain's oldest podiatric medicine schools, trains around 10 per cent of all podiatrists, annually producing around 35 graduates, as well as providing foot care for 5,000 local people.

The university's academic counciI says the planned closure is, due to a predicted decline in students, the high costs of running the division's clinic and the general decline in sector funding.

But the closure, says Mrs Shanks, would leave a shortage of trained podiatrists and problems as Britain's population ages: "Podiatrists keep the elderly population on their feet. If they have to have the elderly in hospital, it will cost people even more."

She said that the division was desperate, if it transferred university, to maintain the building in which its clinic is housed: "It seems that the university is unlikely to let the building go with us as it would wish to sell the building.

"This seems not only morally wrong but a poor use of public funds. The building, as it is purpose built, contains a large amount of equipment that would be lost."

The University of Westminster confirmed it owned the building in which the division's clinic is housed and that no decision on its future had been made.