LECTURERS yesterday wrote to First Minister Jack McConnell asking him to intervene to stop Glasgow University pulling out of a satellite campus set up to help regenerate the south of the country.

Last month, the university said its involvement in the Crichton Campus in Dumfries was under threat because it was running at a loss of £800,000 a year.

The university's plans for a "phased withdrawal" were blamed on the Scottish Funding Council's (SFC) refusal to a request in November last year to increase the number of funded places at the campus from 88 to 300.

However, the SFC, which distributes higher education money on behalf of the Scottish Executive, said the university could continue provision at the campus, set up seven years ago with Paisley University, Bell College and Dumfries and Galloway College, if it saw it as "sufficiently strategically important". Total funding to Glasgow in 2006-07 was almost £147m. With a formal decision to withdraw from Crichton expected at the university's court meeting on Wednesday, UCU Scotland, the lecturers' union, urged Mr McConnell to intervene.

The union also asked the university court to postpone a decision until after the next spending review, which it said may lead to an increase in funding for higher education. A delay would also allow time for a debate in the Scottish Parliament on the issue, scheduled for Thursday.

Alastair Hunter, president of UCU Scotland, added: "Court must give the unions, the students and all those concerned with the local economy and the best interests of Dumfries and Galloway enough time to campaign for the necessary additional public funding."