Can Jubilee’ve it?

Worst open day ever


A massive fire last night ripped through the new chemistry building on Jubilee Campus.

The building – funded by GlaxoSmithKline – caught fire late last night. Fire services were called to the scene at around 8:30 pm.

There were no casualties although Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service said the blaze was “significant”. Which seems pretty obvious.

Computer science student Jack, who saw the blaze first-hand, said: “The fire was massive, I saw it from our house near Lenton Boulevard and it lit the sky up completely.”

Local residents saw pieces of charcoal fall from the sky

Charlie, a second year business student, said: “”I was in Notts last night just for the evening. My sister had the open day and I got there at around 8:30 when the fire was being reported. It was a huge fire, like crazy! I could see it from my window all the way up in Rothesay Avenue””

Over 50 firefighters attended the scene after dozens of callers reported the fire, which could be seen all the way from the city centre.

Group Manager Joanne Wooler-Ward, the Incident Commander for Notts Fire and Rescue, said: “No other buildings have been affected, fortunately no people were involved in this fire and we’ve had 12 crews here, that’s over 60 firefighters.

“Credit to those firefighters who pulled out all the stops to prevent this fire spreading.

Web Cam screenshot of the explosion believed to have caused the fire

“When we arrived, the fire was a significant size – it could be seen from quite a distance – and there was a smoke plume spreading towards the campus area so we sent out a message for people to keep doors and windows closed.

The building was planned to be “carbon-neutral over its lifetime” and ironically the official website states “Excess energy created by the building … is being used to heat the nearby office development on campus.”

One insightful student said: “It was going to be worth £12million when fully complete, fuuuuuck.”

Heard in Hallward proving as witty as ever

Twitter lit up with photos and accounts from people near the fire. Michelle Dickinson said: “Friend lives 0.5 miles from #Jubilee Campus #fire @UniofNottingham and chunks of charcoal falling from sky!”

Matty Daniels, a prospective student, also said: “So I kind of decided I was gonna put Computing (in the Jubilee Campus) down as my second choice, I might have to rethink that one.” 

It is not known for sure whether anyone was in or around the building at the time although the University has released the following statement from Registrar, Dr Paul Greatrix.

Yesterday he said: “Firefighters are currently on site dealing with a major fire at our GSK sustainable chemistry building on Jubilee Campus.

“Thankfully, there have been no casualties as this is a building that was still under construction.

“Tomorrow we are due to welcome prospective students and their families to Nottingham for our Open Day and we would like to stress that this is still going ahead as planned.”

Fire Crews still on the scene, over 12 hours later

In a statement today he added: “We are incredibly grateful to our staff and students for their fantastic response in dealing with this major incident and would like to express our gratitude to Notts Fire Service.

“It was the quick action of their fire crews which prevented this incident from being much more serious. We have also been extremely touched by the messages and best wishes from our close neighbours out in the community.”

This fire is not the first on UoN property, with the physics building surviving a blaze in October last year.

Were you on the scene? Do you have any pics? We want them, email [email protected]