The director of a flagship campus has described as a "kick in the face" plans by his university to pull out of the project set up to regenerate the south of Scotland.

Glasgow University is expected to withdraw from the Crichton campus in Dumfries, the UK's first multiversity, because it is running at an £800,000-a-year loss.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the decision, Ted Cowan, who is also professor of Scottish history at the university, called the campus community "innocent victims" caught up in an apparent "stand-off" between the institution and the Scottish Funding Council over financing the project.

He said: "We have done everything that's been asked of us. We really are on a cusp and Glasgow has always said it would stay if there had been adequate funding. But it seems our achievements were not good enough to persuade the council we should receive additional funding, so this heartbreaking decision has been arrived at. We feel like we've been kicked in the face."

Mr Cowan reiterated calls made last week for Jack McConnell to intervene to save the facility in an area "already ignored in Scottish Executive funding terms". Losing the leading university's presence in the area would be "a tragedy for the economy and culture of the whole of southern Scotland", said Mr Cowan. With a formal decision to withdraw from Crichton expected to be taken at the university's court meeting on Wednesday, UCU Scotland, the lecturers' union, has urged the First Minister to intervene.

The union has also asked the university court to postpone a decision until after the next spending review, which, it claimed, may lead to an increase in funding for higher education.