Exeposé is your free, student-run newspaper. Published fortnightly, you can pick up a copy from halls, libraries and Students’ Guild buildings. Welcome to Exeter: Comment, P 7
Exeposé
Welcome Week 2010 Issue 568 www.exepose.com
Free Photo: Henry White
The view between the library and Devonshire House as students return to Exeter in September. The Forum Project is due to be completed by December 2011.
£48m Forum Project gets underway Project to provide hub for student support services Part of a £275m investment in Streatham Campus
Ellie Busby News Editor
Building work for the £48m Forum Project has now officially begun in the centre of campus. This is just one of many projects involved in the £275m three year investment programme at the University. The Forum building will deliver retail and catering outlets, a 400
seat lecture theatre, a refurbished library, a landscaped piazza, and an increase in seminar rooms and student services will become available. It should be finished by the end of 2011. Since students left for their summer vacation, it is evident that the work has started in earnest on the Forum Project. Renovations have begun in and around the library. The entrance has been moved to the rear of the building, whilst the former entrance frontage and bridge have been demolished. Two large cranes have been installed onto the site, and work is already underway on the foundations for the new lecture theatre and auditorium. The refurbishment of the bottom floor of the library (level -1) is at the halfway
stage, and should be re-opened in January 2011. The services for students should not be greatly affected. However the library staff will increasingly operate in a new way, where they will patrol the floors offering help to students where they need it, in order to reduce the need for them to queue at a central point. The ReadyText service will still be available, but it will be located in the Amory building’s law library, and will remain there until the end of the project. Jo Cole, Communications Officer, told Exeposé: “Work has been progressing well on the Forum Project over the summer holidays with the contractors Sir Robert McAlpine making good progress. Everything is currently going to plan.”
Students seem concerned about the works taking place in the library and the effect it will have on their study. A second year history student said: “The library is such a central part to any student’s life. Most students spend a lot of time there studying, researching and revising. I am concerned that resources will be severely reduced and the noise from the building works will disturb my academic study over the next two crucial years.” The Forum Project team are working hard to make sure disturbance to students is kept to a minimum. Jo Cole said, “We have listened to feedback from users and are currently working to improve our signage to assist students on campus. This includes a ‘Library
Noise Check’ in the Main Library to help students plan if and when they may wish to use alternative places of study and alternative PC clusters.” There are many other building projects taking place on campus, including the construction of halls of residence in Lafrowda and Birks Grange, works on the Business School and the new complex for international students, the INTO project. These works have made access around campus even more complicated. There are currently around 800 construction staff working across the Streatham campus working hard to ensure the campus can provide excellent facilities for the 21st century.