A college is celebrating after being given £33,000 towards new seating.

Woodhouse College in Finchley has been awarded the funds from the Mayor of London’s Skill for Londoners Capital Fund, which aims to help provide training and education facilities at colleges and other institutions.

This award will help to install retractable seating in the main hall, which will help with assemblies, theatre productions and talks.

The local community can also use this seating for events in the evenings and weekends, allowing the college to earn extra revenue.

Principal John Rubinstein said: “We are very grateful to the Mayor of London for including sixth form colleges in the fund and are overjoyed that we’ve been awarded £33,000 towards the cost of our retractable seating, a great new resource for our college.

“In these times of governmentimposed austerity and reduced funding for sixth form colleges it is a welcome change from tightening our belts just to try and maintain our premises.

“This retractable seating will make an immediate and significant difference to our students in our main theatre hall when putting on plays, shows and concerts - as well as turning it into a proper lecture space for our many visiting guest speakers. In fact, we hope to invite the Mayor himself to come and speak once it has been installed.”

The college will have to match the funds in order to complete the installation.

Andrew Dismore AM said: “This is a great investment in Woodhouse College.

“I am pleased that Sadiq is helping to fund these sorts of programmes, which vastly benefits both the community and the college students.”