Universities are under pressure to deliver landmark capital projects to help enhance their brands and entice students in a more competitive market, the Director for Estates & Facilities at the University of Salford has said.

Jason Challender, who is spearheading Salford University’s £300m transformation plan to overhaul its campus, said that the university had produced high quality projects in recent years, however there was a lingering perception that the University hadn’t changed.

He said: “If you keep the buildings as they are, there’s a perception that we haven’t changed as a university. It’s not just about perception and producing iconic and architectural designs, but it is also a question of functionality. The thing with the university is that we’ve done some really good work over the last few years, but it’s all been set back from the A6.”
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“We have built some really high-quality residences, we’ve done the new Adelphi building which is fantastic, but they are all set back from the A6 and there is a perception that we haven’t really changed much. I think it’s important in these changing times with the competition out there that we put the university on the map. We are keen to change that perception and get a wow factor on the A6, it’s something I have been campaigning for.”

The transformation of Salford’s Campus forms part of a wider £800m regeneration of the area surrounding the university in partnership with Salford City Council.

Salford has signed up to the North West Construction Hub for major tenders on its transformation plan for tenders of £9m, with the university using the Construction Impact Framework for lower value works. The masterplan outlines 30-major projects with the funding for the new building work secured from university reserves, surpluses and potentially external funders.

The masterplan itself has been drawn up by 5Plus Architects and includes plans for a new hub train station which would reconnect two sides of the campus, and a major remodelling of existing buildings.

Challender said that a key reason for the overhaul was because the current estate was not being utilised adequately, saying: “The problem with the estate is that we’re running with low space utilisation, running at around 23% which is nowhere near where it needs to be. That’s because many of our buildings are quite poor and we need to make them fit for purpose and we need to get some connectivity between the two sides of the campus. It’s a complete metamorphosis of the estate, we are going to be a different university. Collaboration is a key aspect of the masterplan, we see collaboration as a really core thing.”

Salford is not the only university making plans for a new campus in the North West. Buckingham University has signed up to repurpose Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)’s Crewe Campus into a new hub for health sciences.

University of Buckingham Pro-Vice Chancellor John Clapham said that the perception of what University’s may look like in the coming decades may need to be redefined: “Universities in 10-20 years’ time may be hugely different to what they look like today. There’s going to be a variety of different ways of delivering education not only through university buildings and campuses. It’s something we need to keep an eye on.

“In Milton Keynes you see driverless cars everywhere, it’s almost like the laboratory is out in the town not within the university building themselves. There’s another site to the innovation and it’s not just huge developments that people have to pay for at the end of the day.”

Also speaking at the Built Environment Network’s Manchester conference, Gemma Marsh, Assistant Director – Skills at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority called on the construction industry to engage with both the authority and the education sector to help them deliver the right skills for the industry.

Ms Marsh said: “We have to push back as a combined authority on businesses just saying ‘I can’t find the skills’, we need to ask what skills it is that businesses cannot find, what job, what occupation, then we can do something together. What is your ask of a Combined Authority and how do we respond to it? I can’t guess what a business need. What is it that you cannot find that I need to make sure that the system is responding to? There are huge opportunities across Greater Manchester.”

Questioned on whether Salford had begun engaging with new skills for the construction industry Mr Challender said that the university was looking at the option of introducing modular housing courses.

He said: “Modular isn’t on the curriculum at the moment but discussions are ongoing on whether to include it. The world is changing, we are in a competitive world, and there are skills gaps, things do need to change. The way we build buildings hasn’t changed for many years and I think we really need to get modern in what we do.”
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