Milestone reached at health innovation campus development

Construction of University of Huddersfield’s new National Health Innovation Campus (NHIC) has reached a key milestone with a topping out ceremony held at the Daphne Steele Building.

This first building on the Southgate site, close to the main university campus, is named after the UK’s first black matron. Daphne Steele emigrated to the UK from Guyana in the 1940s.

The building is the first in the project which is designed to help improve health outcomes and lead innovation in healthcare for the North of England.

It will bring together public-facing facilities including student-led clinics, and be a focus for entrepreneurial academic activity, serving the regional and wider health economy in public-private partnerships.

Specialist clinical teaching facilities will provide support for workforce development.

Completion of the Daphne Steele Building, which has also received a grant of £5.8m in capital funding from the Office For Students, is expected to happen in September 2024.

University of Huddersfield vice-chancellor, Professor Bob Cryan, said: “Daphne’s ethos of care and compassion allied to expertise is something that we hope everyone who studies and works in this facility will take with them.

“We are relishing the prospect of this building being fully operational later this year.”

James Wimpenny, executive director – construction, at BAM, said: “This milestone marks not only the highest point of the build but also the culmination of the collaborative efforts of the client, design, and construction teams.

“We are passionate about building inspiring spaces that empower learning and enrich the university experience, and that is exactly what we are delivering here at the university’s new National Health Innovation Campus.”

Plans for more construction on the site next to the Daphne Steele Building are well under way, with a reserved planning application for the second NHIC building having been submitted late in 2023.