Don’t fudge this one up
As momentous announcements go, the news that the University’s expansion plans are going ahead can be filed firmly under foregone conclusions. All the indications were that the path had been cleared for a new campus and that the bureaucratic hurdles in the way were largely formalities. The nod of Ruth Kelly, a year ago appointed Secretary of State responsible for planning, was all that was really required; as far back as last November, Nouse was reporting that the University was confident of securing her approval.
Nearly everything that has been built on campus in the last 20 years has been fudged.
Many have said the project suffers from fatal flaws in conception, that it represents a folly that cannot be rescued by any verve the University might summon. This might be the case, although by whose standards is another question: we all have different priorities, and to hope that a monumental piece of civil and social engineering could satisfy all of them would be comforting but a little optimistic.
Heslington East won’t please everyone: all the same, it would be nice to think that it will please someone. The identity of that someone seems the question to ask from this point onwards. Who are the lucky beneficiaries of the Vice Chancellor’s largesse?
Naturally, it’s not going to be students at the University today. That seems fair enough, since those who have already benefited from their time at York have no right to complain about not receiving the benefits of future plans.
I count myself firmly within this number, having got far more from my years here than I could have bargained for my three grand. I wouldn’t try and place a price on the people I care about here or the time I’ve spent with them – all the same, I’ll happily admit I owe a good measure of both to being at this University.
It’s this affiliation, admittedly as loose and reluctant as I like to keep it, that causes me to fret about the University’s future. I won’t be here in 10 years’ time, but I’d like to think that someone else who will be could get as much out of the place as I have.
This is all the more true since I’ve spent so much of my time here in benign amusement at what a ridiculous place it can be. I’d like things to be better for the class of 10 years hence, and for half a billion pounds, I’ll admit to hoping that a lot of better can be bought.
The campus itself is at least part of the deal, the earth and glass and concrete that will eventually be home to thousands of living, working, drinking students. The Students’ Union have applied pressure for a new central venue on campus to facilitate the last, crucial element of this trio, as well as making recommendations for architects. These are certainly useful things for them to be doing at this stage, even if past experience doesn’t bode well for the weight their input will carry in the end: remember that the barren expanse we now know as the Roger Kirk centre was originally promised to the Union as the proper events venue students had been waiting for since the sixties.
The promised facilities have been a significant part of the University’s pitch for campus two, but far more common to the literature they have produced and the public statements they have made are the kind of determinedly bland statements of intent citing prosperity, diversity and just about anything else that fails to describe the proper aim of a University—satisfying as best as possible the requirements of its students and staff.
It’s understandable enough, given the £2 million that has already been poured into the plans for the new campus, that those in charge feel the need to do a bit of cheerleading; at the moment, though, it has all been directed to those whose approval is required to secure the project’s future, namely the Government and the University’s financial backers.
Hopefully now that the go-ahead has been given, the University can shift focus a little. The VC might have convinced Ruth Kelly, but the student body’s support is going to be a trickier proposition, and I’m afraid I don’t share Rich Croker’s confidence that those “aware of the full picture” are behind the plans. Certainly in principle, most students think a new campus would be good for York—but the kind of campus described in the planning application?
Much-maligned as the current campus is, it’s easy to imagine it being seen as visionary when it was first built in an environment where the concrete jungle was something of a novelty. That it has aged so badly is a testament to how difficult it is to plan 40 years into the future. All the same, there’s something to be said for being bold at the outset.
My worry about Heslington East, in truth, is that it I’m fed up with it already, before the first brick has been laid. I just can’t see what sets it apart from any number of equally uninspiring new developments elsewhere. The difference is that while I don’t have an emotional attachment to multiplexes or shopping centres, I do have quite an attachment to the York campus, and nearly everything that has been built on it in the last 20 years has been fudged. This is a compromise that doesn’t really satisfy anyone except construction firms—the only people involved who have absolutely no stake in how the things they build end up functioning for students and academics.
I’m very much hoping now that the formalities are over with, the University can start making a real case for Heslington East: one that justifies not only its creation, but its existence for the next 40 years. I genuinely hope I’m not disappointed.
