UWE spends £40m to buy 70 acres adjoining campus

The University of the West of England (UWE) has spent £40 million on 70 acres of land next to its Frenchay campus.

It has bought the land, which includes two major office buildings, from computer firm HP Labs as part of a £300 million plan to expand the UWE site.

The purchase will almost double the current 80-acre site in Frenchay.

Following the sale, HP will lease back some existing building space to ensure that all employees based at the site can remain in their current locations. It will provide a space for the university's growing number of research centres such as the Bristol Robotics Lab, Institute of Bio-Sensing Technology and the Institute of Sustainability, Health and Environment.

The Frenchay campus currently hosts UWE's Bristol Business School and Bristol Law School as well as a new School of Education, a languages department, the Bristol Institute of Technology, the School of Life Sciences, and the School of the Built and Natural Environment.

Steve West, UWE vice chancellor, said: "This purchase is the largest single investment the University has made since the inception of the Frenchay Campus at Coldharbour Lane in 1972 – then Bristol Polytechnic, and it offers an excellent opportunity for us to realise the university's long term strategic future."

Long-term plans for the site will be the subject of an 18-month master planning exercise, which will consider the consolidation of UWE's other campuses, creating contemporary teaching and learning facilities and integrating subject areas which are currently split between different campuses.

Steve West added: "Employer engagement is a key focus of our strategy and of the Government's vision for Higher Education."