The University’s £200m plans to develop the Radcliffe Infirmary site look set to be approved after a favourable planning officers’ report to the city councillors.
The Press Office confirmed that they would be applying for planning permission this month. Work could then begin on the 10 acre site at the end of this year, and would be completed by 2013.
The plans are to create a Humanities building with an underground library and a 5 storey Maths department at the former hospital. The listed Infirmary building on Woodstock Road will be used for offices; the listed chapel for meetings, exhibitions and performances, while the former outpatients building will form a new home for the Ruskin School of Art. Two pedestrian and cycle routes would be created linking Woodstock Road and Walton Street.
The University has agreed to construct a new building to replace the Jericho Health Centre.
A spokesman said that the planned development was “very much in the Oxford tradition”, with areas of lawn planned for the north of the site, near the Observatory Gardens of Green-Templeton College.
The site represents the last remaining large plot of land available for development in the historic heart of the city.
It was excavated over the summer by a team of archaeologists from the Museum of London, and evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic/Bronze Age periods was discovered.
Professor Anthony Monaco, chairman of the Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter board, said, “This offers state-of-the-art teaching space, while offering new avenues through the site, exciting courtyards, gardens and squares, all with views of the Radcliffe Observatory.”
Opinion among students has been generally favourable. Oliver Cox, a student at University College, said that “I think it’s great that such a historic building is being reincorporated into the University community.”
Rad-ical changes planned for Infirmary
