Jimmbo,
Is there a reason why you must start in training this year? Why not pass selection and wait 12 months and see how CTC cope with the downturn? Although CTC will try and paint the glossy 'sponsorship' route, they are simply a business, and you pay for the training. There is no sponsorship.
Also, one has to be mindful that in any normal business producing a product, output is varied with demand. My airline has cut back on routes this past winter due to poor yields, aircraft manufacturers are scaling back production, but CTC is steaming full ahead.
With a vastly reduced demand for their output (their trained pilots) CTC are continuing to pump out newly qualified cadets. Of course, their business will only survive with positive cash flow, and hence they need cadets. However, long-term, it is simply not sustainable. My airline has just over 300 pilots and 31 aircraft. We have hired 5 people (not from CTC!) in the recent months, only on short-term contracts, simply because we haven't bought any new aircraft, and no-one is leaving, since no-one is recruiting. Monarch has a similar number of pilots. There is not a never ending demand for pilots. Once airlines no longer expand their fleets, recruitment slows considerably, and in some cases airlines retrench.
Soon the UK will be full of pilots with 400hrs on an Airbus, and a lot of debt. Once EZY stop expanding their fleet, then there will not be a need for summer only contracts either, then what will happen? CTC business model is premised on expanding airlines, and the wheels come off their scheme once that stops but they keep the output of cadets geared to the needs of adding 2/3 aircraft per month. In normal sponsorship schemes, the output is matched pretty much to the needs of the airline, hence why in the past the BA/BMI schemes came and went as the needs of their business changed.
My advice to you is wait and see.