Students are furious after their course at a Brighton College was cancelled five weeks into term.

The engineering students, who signed up for the higher national certificate in engineering (building services) course and included professionals on day release, have been refunded by City College Brighton and Hove.

The college is undergoing a £7 million refit after changing its name from Brighton College of Technology on September 1, promising "a new name, new image and newly refurbished buildings".

The engineering students said they arrived for lectures each week only to be told there was no one to teach them.

They said a teacher had not been timetabled for the classes, which were due to start on September 17.

On October 26, they were told the course would be dropped.

The group, which included first and second year students, has had to transfer to a similar course in Croydon.

Several students say the feel let down and angry at the prospect of starting again at a new college outside Sussex.

Some students will have to finish parts of their course by correspondence with tutors at City College.

Derek Raven, a heating engineer from Southwick who needed the qualification to move into engineering design, said: "We got so fed up we gave them an ultimatum.

"We told them we would only get one chance to get into another college so a decision had to be made if they were going to cancel or not.

"If I had not got on to another course it would have been disastrous.

"It would have meant a step back for two years because I would have had to start the whole course again after missing a year. I will not be going back to City College."

Andrew Marsh, a design engineer and second year student from Tunbridge Wells, needs the qualification to advance his career at a manufacturing and electronics company.

He has transferred to Croydon but said City College was of little help.

He said there were initially a dozen or more students on the course but said many got fed up at finding the classes had been cancelled.

He said: "It was farcical. They kept saying to us we would have someone to take the course next week.

"That happened several times and then they said they had definitely found someone. Each week we were told the same.

"We gave them an ultimatum and told them they had to make a decision because it was getting too late to apply to other courses but they said someone would definitely come in.

"It was getting a bit much. Then they called and said the course would be cancelled.

"If they had told us that from the outset, we could have gone to another college without any of this disruption.

"You always hear we need more people to go into engineering so this is a shame, because there are not many places you can do this course in the South-east. Now that does not include Brighton."

John Evans, deputy principle of City College, blamed a lack of interest in the course for the decision to cancel and said the students were told early on.

He said a teacher would not be timetabled to such a course until the college knew there were sufficient numbers to justify assigning one.

He said: "We decided to cancel the whole course because there were only four first-year students enrolled and in that week we only had four of the second year's.

"Therefore it would have been a very, very weak course and, most importantly for the first year's, starting them off like that would have been more disruptive for them.

"All of the information about the students has been sent to Croydon for them to transfer. There is no question of them not being able to slot into the course.

"We will remain in touch with the students as we are supporting them with that one final unit."