Strikes by lecturers at Richmond College will continue until the management make significant concessions, a union leader said today.

More than 200 staff were on strike today in protest at management reforms and job cuts.

The strikes coincide with a planned parents' evening at the college tonight.

David Carrier, chairman of the college’s branch of the University College Union (UCU), said: “We won't stop until we see progress. What we want is to have a grown-up conversation about education here.”

The striking staff are due to meet management on Thursday to discuss how to bring the strike action, which began in April, to an end.

The college's principal David Ansell is planning to cut more than 100 course co-ordinators, and Mr Carrier said he feared further staff cuts may be planned for later in the year.

He said: "He [Mr Ansell] is proposing to just discard 130 co-ordinators. I want to know from him who is going to do that work. I want a conversation about how that is going to be done.

“The principal is already intending to bring in a new timetable which will mean the session will be shorter which means we will all be teaching a couple more sessions each week. This means there will be less sessions to go round and therefore the potential for possibly 20 redundancies more."

There was also confusion about Mr Ansell's claim that colleges in the London area have reserves over one third the size of their turnover.

In last week's Richmond and Twickenham Times, Mr Ansell said: “[Richmond] college has reserves, which last year stood at 11 per cent of turnover – well below the average of 34 per cent for colleges in the London region” but representatives of the UCU disputed these figures.

Chris Powell, UCU regional official for Further Education for London, said: “I find that difficult to believe. The sort of benchmark used in FE [further education] colleges is that reserves should be at about 10 per cent of annual turnover. I think all I can say is I would be absolutely intrigued where he got that figure from.”