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The Royal Veterinary College is facing staff cuts because of financial difficulties after its grant allocation was cut by 8.7 per cent in February.

Principal Lance Lanyon, who also leads the committee of heads of veterinary schools, warned that all schools were having problems and there could eventually be a closure. "We are ducking and weaving to try and improve the situation and to move staff around. But there will almost certainly be some redundancies."

"It's becoming increasingly difficult to provide a complete veterinary school." The main problem is providing sufficient staff. Equipment can often be procured from charity money," he said.

Schools could share the provision of education but that was unlikely to happen.

"All the schools are hanging on to being complete and hoping that it will all go away," he said. The alternative was that one school might be forced to close .

The Association of University Teachers claimed that the college was seeking to cut ten posts, but Professor Lanyon denied this.