Go ahead secured for health and innovation campus
The University of Huddersfield has received planning consent for construction on its Southgate site to create a home for its new National Health Innovation Campus.
The university is now waiting for a formal decision notice so it can begin development of the 107,000 sq ft first phase building.
It has been designed by locally-based architects AHR, who have previously worked with the university on the Barbara Hepworth Building and the Oastler Building.
This first stage of the Southgate development will include a new home for the Health and Wellbeing Academy.
Local people will also benefit from access to a podiatry clinic, a telehealth service, sports and physiotherapy clinics, parent and child clinics, mental health facilities and public-facing spaces dedicated to social science.
The building will host a number of classrooms, labs and other specialist facilities for learning which will include:
- A mock-up operating theatre
- A mock-up ambulance known as a ‘simbulance’
- A community flat/dwelling that will replicate visiting patients at home
- The Podiatry Clinic, which will be open to the public
- Dedicated office and workspace for external partners
University vice-chancellor, Professor Bob Cryan, said: “This is a significant step along the road to our goal of improving health outcomes and leading innovation in healthcare for the North of England with the National Health Innovation Campus.
“The new building will be a welcoming space for the local community, students and staff.
“It will help bring together our public-facing health facilities, our entrepreneurial academic activity and research, and make a key contribution to the health economy at a local level and on a larger scale. ”
The campus will enable rapid expansion in fields such as nursing, midwifery, allied health and human sciences, which will help to meet the demand for healthcare professionals.
