Twickenham is now nearer to having its own university after St Mary's College was granted the power to award its own degrees.

The Waldegrave Road college is currently part of the University of Surrey and students taking courses at the campus are awarded a degree from that institution.

But following an 18-month period of scrutiny by the Quality Assurance Agency, the organisation that safeguards the public interest in standards of higher education qualifications, the Strawberry Hill college has been given the power to award its own taught degrees by the Privy Council, the body responsible for making the decision.

This means that St Mary's can now take the title of a university college and can apply for full university status when it meets the criteria, which includes having 4,000 students on full-time equivalent courses. It currently has 3,500.

Students already at St Mary's will be awarded University of Surrey degrees but anyone entering from September 2007 onwards will join a university college and will study for a St Mary's degree.

Dr Arthur Naylor, the college principal, said St Mary's could have awarded its own degrees to students starting this month because university college status is already in place, but they decided to wait until next year.

He said the whole college was thrilled they had been given taught degree awarding powers.

"We are delighted that the process has been completed, we have gone through all the stages and we have confirmation that we can award our own degrees," said Dr Naylor.

"I think this confirms our position in the higher education sector."

Dr Naylor said some colleges have used the awarding of these powers to change their name but explained that was not the plan for St Mary's "We have been St Mary's since 1850 and we are looking to use that title and we are not anticipating any confusion with St Mary's in Belfast," he said.

He added that the local community would be benefiting from the changes at St Mary's but would not see a huge increase in the number of students coming into the Strawberry Hill area.

"We are looking to get a university title but we are not looking to increase our undergraduate numbers," he said.

"There is an enormous potential in part-time courses, masters courses, short courses and career personal development courses that can be done off campus.

"We already run programmes off campus and we are looking to expand that.

"We need 4,000 full time equivalent students but not 4,000 undergraduates, we had about 3,500 last year. All the people who do evening or masters courses or MAs, they all count.

"I think university status is probably achievable in the short to medium term, we are not that far away, and developing our masters programme is something we can do to benefit the community. A lot of local people take our courses and we can grow that part of our programme relatively quickly.

"I think the community already benefits - we do an awful lot of work here and alongside the undergraduate work we have lots of short course programmes."

Vincent Cable, MP for Twickenham, said: "This is very good news for the area and we should take great pride in it.

"St Mary's have excellent standards, particularly in the teacher training sector and in sport and it is very good that this is now being recognised."