CLYDEBANK'S college principal is leaving for Edinburgh, it has been announced.

Audrey Cumberford has been principal and chief executive of West College Scotland since it was formed five years ago from the merger of Clydebank College, James Watt College and Reid Kerr College, where she had been principal.

She'll now be taking up a similar role at Edinburgh College and WCS board of management chairman Keith McKellar thanked Ms Cumberford for her work.

In a message to staff, he said: "Audrey led us through a period of unprecedented change and significant turbulence in the sector. In doing so, she built for the College a reputation as one of Scotland’s most dynamic and highly-regarded educational institutions.

“Whatever challenge Audrey faced over the past five years, she did so with integrity, honesty and openness. These qualities are her hallmark. For me, her greatest achievement has been to ensure those same qualities now define the culture of the organisation which she led so well.”

The outgoing principal said it will be "a wrench" to leave the colleagues and friends she's made after nearly 20 years at Reid Kerr and WCS.

She said: “I am confident the ambitious plans we have developed will allow the college to continue to enhance its reputation as a first-class provider of education and training, delivered in state-of-the-art facilities in Clydebank, Greenock and Paisley.

“I am now looking forward to taking up my position at Edinburgh College, which is where I began my career in the sector in the 1990s.

“In the meantime, I wish everyone at West College Scotland the very best for the future.”

The college said their board would begin the process of finding a new principal.