Thanks for all the replies and PMs folks! I will certainly follow up on one or two of those leads, and the London Guildhall/Met course could be a go-er given that I work more or less next door to their City campus.
The £200 per day is what I have to pay to take leave over and above my given holidays. It is essentially the same as unpaid leave except I am limited to the number of days (5 I believe) I can actually pay for. Having any more days off is not possible, even as direct unpaid leave, due to the ethos of the bank I work for. Not a brilliant situation, but given the cost of training and the uncertainty of the airline job market I want to reduce the financial risk to as little as possible by working up until the utmost latest point!
I wasn't aware that the modular flight training had to be done full time as well. I will certainly need to do more research into my options. However, I think that getting my ATPL exams done and dusted over the next 18 months would be a suitable target to aim for whilst my girlfriend continues at uni. It's a shame that, apparantly, no schools offer weekend ground school! I would be willing to give up my weekends and accrue the necessary hours that way. I wonder how much demand there is for students for that?