Unless the college has a re-jig of dates and courses to allow area and aerdrome to start at the same time, it is likely to continue to being split. 216 (July 08) was the last "joint start" and it was problems in the area sims and lack of instructors for 216 basic that caused a back log and thus area 217 was put back a month, whilst aerodrome 217 could start as planned.
That is why there is now this split, and I don't see them being able to go back to the joint starts unless they have a serious fiddle around with the timetable to make up the lost time.