Archive - Thursday, 21 November 2002


Find by date

Other ways to search

Also look for

Never miss anything again. Sign up for our RSS news feeds and Newsletters.

New Ruskin site 'health risk'

Ruskin College came under fire from students and lecturers over plans to move the college on to "a contaminated site" in north Oxford.

The college's plan to move to a purpose-built three-storey building on the old Unipart factory site would have serious safety implications for students, Ruskin's governing executive was warned yesterday.

Teresa Munby, chairman of the Ruskin branch of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) said heavy metals and hydrocarbons posed a potential health threat. She said lead, zinc, cadmium, arsenic and benz (a) pyrene had all been found on the site, off Woodstock Road. She accused the executive of not giving full consideration to documents setting out the contamination.

The AUT wants the college to remain in Walton Street and Old Headington and to pull out of its partnership with Berkeley Homes to create a new home.

But the principal of Ruskin, Jim Durcan said: "We have been assured that it is safe. There will be legal guarantees put in place."