By Kelly Eve Education Reporter

Last updated at 17:43, Friday, 30 March 2012

The University of Cumbria will have completely moved out of its Newton Rigg campus by September 2014, which will boost student numbers in Carlisle.

Prof Liz Beaty

Details of the change emerged today as part of a £4.5 million investment that will breathe new life into its historic Ambleside campus – two years after the site was mothballed as the institution battled with a £30m financial crisis.

When further education, land and other assets at Newton Rigg, near Penrith, were handed to Askham Bryan College last summer it was agreed that the University of Cumbria would continue to provide higher education there for the next three years, a move which gave the university time to develop its long-term estates strategy.

The university will still have a presence in a joint field and research centre with Askham Bryan’s Newton Rigg College, but its higher education provision will move.

Its policing institute, which has around 80 students, will be relocating to the university’s Fusehill Street campus in Carlisle, while courses in forestry, outdoor studies, conservation and applied sciences are going to Ambleside, the former Charlotte Mason College site.

Around 100 students are already at Ambleside, on outdoor studies courses, but the number is likely to increase by about 700 within two years.

The plans are subject to a detailed business case being presented to directors that could include selling any surplus space at Ambleside. Final plans will be ready in May.

New facilities will be built there, with the university working with the Lake District National Park Authority. The first phase of the rebuild will be complete by 2014/15.

Pro vice-chancellor Prof Liz Beaty said: “Severe economic conditions at the start of 2010 necessitated the mothballing of most of the Ambleside campus buildings, but the university always had the desire to redevelop the campus in a sustainable way once circumstances allowed, in programmes relevant to the location and community.

“With the successful turnaround in the university’s financial position in the last 18 months and the far-reaching change in position at Newton Rigg, we now have the opportunity to start working with others to develop a long term, sustainable future in Ambleside.”

She added: “The Ambleside campus represents the University of Cumbria within the heart of the Lake District National Park.

“The facilities will offer individual and distinctive advantages for students on courses such as outdoor studies, forestry and conservation, providing easy access to the unique geography surrounding it.

“This exceptional location in effect becomes a classroom and we see the location of the campus in Ambleside to be crucial to these courses.”

The Ambleside site also forms part of the university’s recently-announced overhaul of its business school. More short, intensive courses for international students will be created and there will be a focus on postgraduate research and increasing PhD student numbers.

The business school changes include scrapping related undergraduate courses in Carlisle but the establishment of a business interactive centre in the city.

First published at 14:10, Friday, 30 March 2012
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk