A Leigh Sinton man was presented with a CBE by Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.

Dr David Collins, principal at South Cheshire College, received the honour yesterday (Thursday) for services to further education.

Speaking earlier this week, he said he was looking forward to his big day. He was being accompanied by his wife Linda and parents Vera and Leslie, who are both in their eighties.

Dr Collins spends weekdays at South Cheshire College in Crewe, returning at weekends to Leigh Sinton, where he has lived for 20 years. In 2004, the college received the best ever college Ofsted report with 13 outstanding grades, including one for leadership and management.

Dr Collins' CV includes being vice-principal of Sandwell College, where he developed the ISO 9000 quality assurance standard for colleges.

He was a head of department at Redditch College (now North East Worcestershire College) and the education co-ordinator at Edinburgh Prison and Edinburgh Young Offenders. He has also acted in interim support roles to five other colleges in recovery situations, as well as spending a year as acting principal at what is now Bolton Community College.

Dr Collins' main academic interests centre around the improvement of quality of further education. He has presented papers on various aspects of this topic in America, Australasia, Asia and South Africa, as well as the United Kingdom.

He has served on a number of national advisory committees and had been involved with the Centre for Excellence in Leader-ship, leading teams into various colleges and designing and delivering the National Induction Programme for New Principals.

A visiting professorial fellow at Lancaster University, Dr Collins was made a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours earlier this year.