Sussex approve new £200m accommodation build despite £10m losses in pandemic

The University of Sussex has recently announced a plan to build a new student accommodation village on campus which will include facilities such as a supermarket, cafe, health and wellbeing centre and a new study space. The university are working alongside Balfour Beatty to develop housing for 1900 students, with the funding provided by the same company to oversee the new East Slope build.

The new build will be in place of some of the current accommodation buildings with Kent House, Lancaster House and Park Village among those to be demolished. With Park Houses and Park Village being the cheapest accommodation on campus, concern has been expressed over the affordability of university housing for students. However, a spokesperson for the university has assured students that the funding is from Balfour Beatty and will not impact on the current financial situation of Sussex.

Tim Westlake, Chief Operating Officer at Sussex, has stated that “we want to ensure we continue to develop or housing stock to provide high-quality, modern homes for our students.”

“We invited students to tell us what sort of facilities they would like to have in their accommodation and these results were fed into the design and planning process.”

Read more about the build here.