That's if councillors sign off on the deal at this week's council meeting.

Councillors will vote on Tuesday whether to permit Mayor Col Murray to sign the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on their behalf, according to the council's business paper.

Under the agreement, Tamworth council will offer UNE access to "appropriate premises" at peppercorn rent for an initial period of at least two years before considering whether to go to commercial rent after that time.

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UNE Tamworth reference group chair Mitch Hanlon backed the proposal.

"What council is doing is setting up for council to sit down with UNE and engage with leasing on council property, public property," he said.

"That would facilitate the hub and spoke model that they're working towards.

"It would utilise underutilised council assets like the sports dome, [the Australian Equine and Livestock Events Centre] AELEC, the flying college dormitory, which the council owns now, and even land that council's developing in the industrial estate.

"You can start setting up these pods, these learning centres, that are engaged with industry.

"I'm actually quite happy with the peppercorn lease, I think you do need to give them a subsidy, a leg up so to speak."

The university will also commit to establishing an English language training program for the immigrant workforce in the Tamworth region.

Council will help jointly develop a scholarship fund as part of the proposal being considered.

And UNE will become Tamworth's "preferred supplier of education and research".

The two institutions will agree to turn Tamworth into a "university city", the paper details.

The MOU will expire two years after it is signed, or whenever either party ends it.

The university already conducts teaching at AELEC and the sports dome.

A campus masterplan and design will be completed in the next 12 months, with a view to break ground within 12 months.

The project is still waiting on $10 million of funding from the Commonwealth Government, which would unlock $26.6 million from the state government.

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