Blog
"Weekly Info" Special: Heslington East Site Visit
The more astute amongst you may have noticed I didn't have time to write a "Weekly Info" last week. I was going to run through the three major committees within the university and what they do, but that'll have to wait for another week.
Today, I went on a site visit to Heslington East. If you've taken a walk along Field Lane lately - that's the road that goes past Heslington Church up to B&Q - you'll have noticed the new Goodricke College buildings going up rapidly. What you don't notice until you're up close, though, is just how big they are.
Heslington East is an enormous development by campus standards. The plans and the models (they're in the Information Centre and online at the university's web site) don't give a sense of scale; looking at them, it's easy to assume that the accommodation buildings will be as big as, say, James College or Alcuin. And they're not - they're so, so much larger.
I stood in the middle of the building site, surrounded by a five-storey array of scaffolding poles that carved out the lines of the buildings-to-be; lines that curved sleekly rather than having the stark angles of the current campus. Picture the old part of Vanbrugh College, round the corners a bit, then put another Vanbrugh College on top; and then copy it two or three times around a big central area. You're still probably not thinking big enough. It's a complete change from anything that this university's used to.
Heslington East is also slightly further away than you might think. It's not just tucked away near the church as an extension to Campus West; and it's not a new Halifax College, sat out on a limb. It's a new development in its own right, and - when complete in a few years - it'll change the layout and the "centre" of campus entirely. No longer will the bottom of the Vanbrugh ramp be the de facto centre point of the university; we'll be spread out over a much wider area, and there's no way to predict how that's going to affect life here.
The development's on schedule. The lake's being dug, the hills are being built up, and the buildings are rising from the mud. The first residents should move in this October, and we're working on making sure there's enough support over there for them. Heslington East is on its way.
What happens to the university afterwards? Honestly: I have no idea.
