‘We’re the University for Bristol’ says boss as new campus is a year away

Vice-chancellor Evelyn Welch says the new campus by Temple Meads will be a game-changer for the city

The boss of Bristol University hailed the progress made on its new Enterprise Campus with a year to go before it opens, and said it will show that her organisation is a ‘University for Bristol’, not just the ‘University of Bristol’. There will be 4,600 more students heading to the new campus next to Temple Meads station, along with 650 staff.

Prof Evelyn Welch, the vice-chancellor of Bristol Uni, allowed Bristol Live inside the vast building for the first time today, giving a glimpse into what business leaders and university bosses hope will become the nation’s leading study, research and development institutions in high-tech areas like innovation, digital engineering, artificial intelligence and quantum.

The Temple Quarter campus has replaced the derelict former Royal Mail Sorting Office on Cattle Market Road, which was regularly named Bristol’s worst eyesore in its prominent location next to Temple Meads Station. The university campus includes a new eastern entrance to the station, and is kickstarting the regeneration of the area now known as Temple Quarter, with many student accommodation blocks, a new school, offices and, eventually, thousands of new homes.

“We are the anchor tenant for one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects,” said Prof Welch. “This was a derelict site, the old sorting office which hadn’t been used for decades. But so too, the remainder of the area has such potential – potential for housing, for schools, for clinics, but also for places where industry can come and find the talent that they need,” she said.

“And we’re really proud that our students love to stay in Bristol,” she added. “Our students love to create jobs in Bristol. Our students love to create businesses in Bristol.

“The new Enterprise Campus has got three main purposes,” she said. “The first is to enable industry-oriented research innovation that leads to spin-outs to small companies developing and large ones joining us as well.

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“The second is an education, which is really designed to be AI-enabled and to be fit for this amazing technological future that we are all both slightly frightened by, but also need to embrace.

“And finally, it’s a space for the community. It’s a space where people from all over Bristol can come and we have a specific site in this building called the Bristol Rooms, showing that we aren’t just the University of Bristol, we’re the university for Bristol,” she said.

There have been concerns that the growth of the university and the number of students in the city is contributing to the wider housing crisis in Bristol, including some councillors at City Hall saying the university is fuelling the affordability crisis for many young people.

Prof Welch said the university has been working with community groups. “So we know that people who live around universities are always concerned about studentification,” she said.

“They’re worried: ‘Are families being pushed out?’ They’re worried about noise. They’re worried about poor behaviour.

“We’ve found throughout the neighbourhoods where we’re based that we’ve been able to work with local community groups, with local neighbourhood groups, to really make sure that our students understand that they are part of not just a student community, but a civic community. And we will be doing the same here,” she added.

Professor Judith Squires, the deputy vice-chancellor and the university’s lead for the Temple Quarter Programme, said: “We’ve reached a really important milestone today in the delivery of our new campus.

“It is the catalyst for an area of regeneration that will transform this previously neglected area of Bristol into a vibrant place for our local communities. The transformation both inside and outside of the main building is truly impressive, with the internal spaces really taking shape and the external landscaping beginning to reveal the future public realm.

“This time next year, we’ll be preparing to welcome the first people to our flagship building, so it is heartening to see the project continuing to develop on schedule and on budget,” she added.