From the archives: 'Precinct of the future'
Hello? The noughties are calling and they want their campus back! By 2009 the campus was meant to be a glass-and-wood skyscraper fit for a sci-fi. In 2017, it seems much closer to its 2005 counterpart...
Last academic year, the University revealed its new strategic plan for the period 2016-2023. Plans focus on Tyndall Avenue and include plans for a new library, a ‘Student Resource Hub’ and pedestrianizing the area.
What wasn’t revealed however, was that the University had announced similar plans in 2005.
Set to be completed in 2009, the NUCLEUS Project set to replace The Hawthorns with a high-rise building and combining Arts and Social Library and the Students' Union.
The plans were proposed to ‘bring improved facilities for students, with greater availability, and may encourage more students to take advantage of the Union’s bars.’
Plans to move the Union to a more central location to make it ‘an integral part of student life’ evidently fell through, while the issue’s front page reveals that Tyndall Park in 2005 looked exactly how it does today, showing that the £250-million investment plan was shelved.
First published in Epigram (18th April 2005)
What do you think in the new Tyndall Avenue plans? Let us know: