University of Nottingham to sell £80m Castle Meadow Campus just months after it fully opened

The University of Nottingham is planning to sell Castle Meadow Campus, which cost £80 million, just months after it fully opened.

The university has told staff that in the next few weeks, parts of the campus it occupies will be shut down.

These include prior HMRC tax offices, which Nottingham bought in 2021 for £37.5 million. It later outlined plans to transform the area into an “enterprise campus” that would conjoin research and business, Nottinghamshire Live reports.

Unions have criticised the campus, dubbing it a “vanity project” and accusing its construction of being partially to blame for the axing of hundreds of university jobs.

Castle Meadow is a large complex of seven buildings owned by the university in the city centre, but it has several tenants and other entities operating within it.

There is a possibility of further buildings being sold amid the university’s financial struggles, as Nottingham seeks to “identify underutilised buildings”.

According to the university, it costs £100 million annually to run the campus, a figure it cites as “not sustainable”.

The University of Nottingham via Canva

A University of Nottingham spokesperson said: “We bought Castle Meadow Campus (CMC) when the university planned to grow and expand its footprint in the city centre and develop new opportunities for teaching, research and partnership activity.

“However, the financial landscape for Nottingham and the wider sector has changed.

“While we are making difficult decisions on re-sizing our workforce and reducing our curriculum we cannot commit ongoing budget to spaces and buildings which no longer align to our strategic priorities.

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“Selling CMC would reduce our operating costs and allow us to redirect resources into providing a world-class teaching and research environment for our staff and students.”

Unions have criticised spending on the building, which they say was only supposed to amount to £45 million over the first decade of its development.

Nottingham’s announcement to sell Castle Meadow follows its planned sale of King’s Meadow Campus earlier this year.

Castle Meadow Campus via Google Maps

Gary Moss, the university’s director of estates and facilities, sent a message to staff on 26th November confirming Castle Meadow campus is being sold.

The university announced its “Future Nottingham” restructuring programme in April, following a £17 million loss last year. Increased spending and decreased numbers of international students, who pay higher fees than home students, were cited as reasons for the deficit.

Over the past 18 months, the university has been developing proposals as part of the programme to respond to challenges facing the UK higher education sector.

A target of 20 per cent has been set by the university to shrink its non-residential estate, with the sale of Castle Meadow Campus forming this decision.

The announcement was made earlier in February, with the last parts of the new campus opening just months before.

External tenants, Arden University and Nottingham College, also based on the campus, will remain on site as sitting tenants while the plans for the sale progress.

Originally, the site was home to studios for ITV Central and Carlton TV before being bought in 2005 by the university.

Relocation of staff and services is said to have begun, but comes amid a “challenging” financial year for the university, with MPs having warned of the potentially “profound impact” the axing of several courses could have on the city.

Featured image via Google Maps