The Russel Group’s plans to spend £9bn on capital projects between now and 2016/17 makes them a more powerful client base than the Olympic Delivery Authority was back before the 2012 Games.
Amid all the noises about collaboration that are accompanying the industry’s exit from recession, a trend is emerging towards a perhaps unlikeley partnership that has the potential to address some of the key challenges in urban development in the UK. It is a partnership that will increase the appeal of the country’s cities to both occupants and funders alike. Yet it is receiving surprisingly little air time.
The publication last week of a report showing that Britain’s elite Russell Group of 24 universities plan to spend £9bn between them on capital projects between now and 2016/17 makes them, in spending terms, a more powerful client base than the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) was back before the 2012 Games. Their appeal is enhanced by the fact they are also longer-term clients.
But this headline spend is only one part of the growing power universities are wielding when it comes to development in the UK. An even bigger potential impact lies in the slowly emerging trend for these institutions to partner more closely with the cities in which they are based to