By Joseph Sharp, News Reporter
Following delays and complications securing planning permissions for the prospective Temple Quarter Campus, the University has secured permission for the construction of a research hub in the Temple Meads area.
It has been confirmed that the University has secured the planning permission to convert two industrial buildings into its ‘most state-of-the-art and world-leading research facilities’.
This new research facility is to be located on Avon Street, in the St Philips area of Temple Meads. This will replace the former Vauxhall Drive workshop and plans to be open by early 2022. However, the space will not be fully complete until early 2023.
The research facility will host the Bristol Digital Futures Initiative, an innovation focused initiative that emphasises the creation of technologies for the betterment of the world. It will also host the MyWorld initiative which aims to make Bristol and Bath a centre of creative technologies. Both schemes are supported by £100 million and £46 million of university funding respectively.
The planned space boasts features such as an auditorium, a collation focused ‘Neutral lab’ and the world’s first ‘Reality Emulator’ space, which aims to use digital interaction to allow teams to interact with ‘digital models of physical and social worlds’.
These planning permissions come after delays caused by complications with wider development plans in the St Philips area, with the full campus (rather than just the research hub) initially being due to open in September 2022.
The current plans for the full campus, which intends to span 14.85 acres and host 3,000 students, have not yet been fully secured. However, the university aims to have the construction on this site start in summer 2022, to be finished for summer 2025.
Featured image: University of Bristol
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