PLANS for a new £25m building, providing a home for creative, technical and practical courses at Oxford Brookes University, have been approved.

Plans to knock down the Helena Kennedy Centre at the university’s Headington campus and replace it with a new larger building have been granted permission by Oxford City Council.

Members of the council’s east area planning committee gave the go-ahead for the replacement building, which will house labs and facilities for courses in mechanical engineering, computer sciences, architecture and art all under one roof.

The university says the new facility is required due to the "resurgence of interest in design, craft, sustainability and technical making skills".

Work on the new building is anticipated to start in the autumn, with an expected completion date of summer 2020.

The work is part of the university’s 10-year plan which will see a total of £220m invested at the academic institution over the next decade.

The Helena Kennedy Centre is named for the lawyer and champion of civil liberties and human rights, who became the first chancellor at Oxford Brookes University in 1994. It sits to the west of Headington Hill Hall, part of the university campus and included in the protected Headington Hill Conservation Area.

The hall, originally owned by the Morell family in 1824, was designed by John Thomas. The family kept the site until 1953, when it was sold to Oxford City Council.

The council then let the site to the infamous Robert Maxwell, the former Oxford United owner, who applied for planning permission for the erection of a building for office and storage accommodation. This became the Pergamon Press Building, later renamed the Helena Kennedy Centre.

In 1992, after the closure of the press building, the council negotiated a long lease with the newly named Oxford Brookes University – formerly Oxford Polytechnic.

The university says the building, which is not listed, is now no longer fit for purpose.

The dean of the faculty of Technology, Design and Environment, Paul Inman said: “The new building will provide the university with big, bright, open creative spaces where making is very visible.

“The plans are a response to the resurgence of interest in design, craft, sustainability and technical making skills.

“We will be providing spaces that at present don’t exist in the city, spaces where our researchers and students can interact with businesses and our immediate communities. The building will allow us to anticipate the many careers our students will take up and connect us to the sectors employing them.”