Council re-approves Innovation Campus
Lancaster University’s £167m Innovation Campus, first proposed in 2006, is due to start on site in the coming months after the city council gave consent to revised plans.
The university is targeting a 2019 completion date for the £41m first phase of the 350,000 sq ft development.
Lancaster City Council confirmed the transfer of 28 acres of land to the South of the city at Bailrigg to the university in February. The campus will be connected to the University’s health and medicine faculty, and is targeted at business, healthcare and academic occupiers.
The site was first allocated as the Bailrigg Business Park in Lancaster’s Local Plan, and then later earmarked by the now-defunct North West Development Agency as suitable for a science park.
The NWDA had agreed to provide funding but closed suddenly in 2014.
A planning application for the site was first submitted in 2007, and approved in outline form in 2009.
Yesterday Lancaster City Council approved the renewal of the planning permission, and signed-off an alteration to conditions to allow access and landscaping works to be delivered in phases.
The plans approved in 2009 were designed by Taylor Young, now IBI, and White Young Green, now WYG. WYG, CBRE’s planning and development team, and John McAslan & Partners are now advising on the project.
This should cement Lancaster University’s position as one of the top universities in the country. Good to see high level engagement of a University in development / innovation with business rather than the usual ‘high tech parks’ which are usually just glitzy business parks with no USP.
By Sceptic
Good news, though like most things in Lancaster it is long overdue.
By Gene Walker