Update: As you may have noticed, this story was an April Fool's prank.

A BASINGSTOKE college is set to be renamed to celebrate its links with China.

Principal of Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT), Anthony Bravo, has today announced that the college is going be renamed "Beijingstoke College of Technology" after a number of successful visits to China to establish links with the country.

Mr Bravo said: "In recent years, we have been focusing on establishing links with China, both in terms of recruiting students and sharing our expertise.

"This work has been paying off; we have our first Chinese students on courses with us this year, we have appointed an agent in China, have hosted many Chinese visitors and numerous members of BCoT staff have travelled to China to train colleagues there.

"Now seemed like the right time to make a public declaration of our strengthening links and so we are pleased to announce this renaming.”

BCoT will continue to recruit the majority of its students locally but intends to introduce a Chinese theme through a host of college activities.

For example, the college's student catering manager is already negotiating a supply contract with an Oriental catering supplier in order to bring some ‘Eastern Promise’ to student meal times.

Marketing manager, Claire Sutton, added: "Clearly a major rebranding like this will take some time to filter through everything that we as a college produce.

"Initially, we will be concentrating on the more publicly visible spaces, with new signage going up around the college over the Easter break and the website being updated before the start of the Summer Term.

"I’m also working on our new prospectus – I think it will be the first time we’ve ever produced a Mandarin version as well as an English one! It’s all very exciting!”