THOUSANDS of students have been taking part in a real learning experience in the last few weeks as they make themselves at home in the new Kidderminster College.Elizabeth Fowler gets to grips with Spanish on a course run by Carol Conway

The 5,000 full and part-time students have been finding their feet in the four-storey £9million building in Market Street.

Collegespokesman Jayne Wassell described it as a "Tardis", after the deceptively spacious time machine from TV's Dr Who, as it looks bigger from the inside than the outside.

"The marketing department recently held business and community group tours of the new site and many commented on how large the interior seemed compared to the seemingly compact exterior," she said.

She said the new buildings have 7,000 sq m of usable space, tailored to meet the needs of today's students with a bigger library and computer resources, modern study rooms and eating area and open-plan access ways.

The old Hoo Road buildings, which dated from the mid-1950s, had 12,000 sq m of space but much of it had been under-used since the demand changed for courses in carpet technology.

Now principal Andrew Miller plans to use the new base to continue the ambitious plans of building strong business and community links - putting the college right at the heart of the town in every way.